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“About two years.”

Charlie grabbed a meat thermometer out of the crate and slid it into the teapot.

“What are you doing?” Kevin finally grew brave enough to ask.

“When did you first meet the girl in the picture? The guilty girl whose idea it was to move to North Dakota?” Charlie pulled out a coiled piece of copper piping and threaded it through a small hole in the side of the bucket.

“Um, down in Missouri,” Kevin said. His voice sounded more panicked the more he talked and the more Charlie worked at the table. “I got into some trouble with Rook when he started to work with Damon, so we worked out a deal.”

“That you’d put your chemical culinary skills to work and start cooking meth for them?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. Uh…” Kevin gulped loudly, and Charlie looked back at him. “One day, while Damon and I were talking, I told him I knew a better way of cooking. Damon had started to feel some heat from the local pigs in St. Louis, so that girl…Kay, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, she started to hang around back then. Damon liked her, but she was still a whore.”

Charlie turned fully around and leaned back on the corner of the table, with his arms folded. Kevin looked over at him, nervous about what he’d said, truth or not. Charlie sat there a moment before telling Kevin to continue and turned back to the crate. He pulled out a Mason jar without a lid, then turned back toward Kevin with a length of string in his mouth, working to loop it around the lip of the jar.

“Uh, well, this Kay said she’d read or seen something about North Dakota having this huge job boom, and even fast food workers were making something like fifty grand a year. Damon looked into it and found all kinds of stories about oil rig workers getting hooked on meth, working like six straight days without sleep, shit like that. What meth dealer could turn that down, right? Supposedly, there’s drug testing and all that, but with the demand the way it is, there are always jobs to fill, always a need.”

Charlie knotted the string and turned back to the bucket. He hung the Mason jar from a small spigot at the bottom of the bucket and grabbed two jugs out of the milk crate.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asked again, craning his neck toward Charlie.

Again, Charlie ignored him and put a small white painter’s mask around his neck. He filled the white bucket with the contents of the first jug, then put on his mask and filled the teapot with the contents of the second, very carefully so as not to spill so much as a drop. He then turned on the burner and walked back over to his chair across from Kevin, pulled down his mask, and sat in the chair. Next, Charlie looked at his watch. “We’ve got a little time. Is there anything else you wanna tell me? Anything else you might want to say about where the meth is? I hear there’s quite a bit of it.”

Kevin didn’t say anything, but he continued to twist against his restraints.

Charlie looked over at the contraption on the counter. A clear liquid had started to drip into the jar. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, Kevin. Regardless of that cigar thing I did earlier, I took out most of my frustrations on your buddy Clarence. I figure you’ll either tell me what I want to know so I can let you live or you won’t. If you won’t, I’ll kill you and find some other way to Damon.”

“You won’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“Because I’m the only one who knows where the meth is,” Kevin said, sounding as if his confidence was coming back, if for only a moment.

“Actually, that’s where you’re wrong,” Charlie said as he put his mask back on and walked over to the table. “See, I don’t need the drugs. I just want them. Unlike you and your junkie clientele, I know the difference between the two.” Charlie squatted down on his haunches and looked at the clear liquid forming in the jar. “How old are you, Kevin?” Charlie asked, keeping his attention on the jar.

“Thirty-five.”

“So you graduated college almost fifteen years ago and just started cooking a couple years ago? What were you doing before that? Working in some lab running tests?”

“I worked for a food manufacturer, helping to develop frozen foods,” Kevin said.

The response made Charlie turn around on the balls of his feet, remaining in the squatted-down position. “In another time, another place, I’d have been interested to hear more about that. Sounds a hell of a lot more interesting and safer than cooking meth.”

“Listen, I didn’t have anything to do with that whore—”

Kevin didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, because Charlie was out of his squat and across the room in a blink. Charlie slammed a right hook into his chest, and Kevin tipped over backward in his chair, smacking down onto the cement floor.

“Don’t you dare say anything else about my sister,” Charlie hovered over Kevin, and even with the mask on, he felt his face twist and redden. Kevin twisted his head away in anticipation of another strike, and Charlie pulled his fist back but stopped and walked back over to the table. He then, very delicately, removed the jar from the spigot and carried it over to the prone Kevin, taking measured steps. For a moment, he just stood there, looking down at the helpless chemist. “From your schooling,” Charlie said, his voice flat as he did his best to calm himself, “do you remember what pyroligneous acid is?”

Kevin’s eyes widened, as if he knew all too well what it was. He didn’t say anything, though, and just coughed and groaned some more.

“Sometimes it’s called wood vinegar. I heard that back in the Civil War, they tried to preserve meat in it, though it didn’t work well. After all, it’s a carboxylic acid, and it can be used to make all kinds of nasty gases. The real concern, at least for you, comes not only from the fact that it can burn your skin, particularly your eyes, but also that it is highly flammable and can explode or create highly corrosive and toxic gases.” Charlie squatted down next to Kevin, who had stopped coughing and moving altogether but was sweating profusely. “One time I was doing some work in a bad place, and I saw a guy get gasoline poured down his throat. They gave him a cigarette and a blindfold, like it was an old-fashioned firing squad, and lit the cigarette. The flame sparked and followed the fumes from the gas into his stomach, burned him from the inside out, and that was just gasoline. This, my friend, is acid.” Charlie set the glass jar down a foot away from Kevin and walked back to the milk crates and grabbed a roll of toilet paper. He tucked the end of the toilet paper into Kevin’s shirt collar and rolled the rest toward the door. Charlie took the edge of his shirt sleeve and dabbed Kevin’s forehead. “Hold still,” he said and set the jar quivering, just above Kevin’s eyes on his forehead. He watched the liquid tremble, but the jar didn’t fall. “Of course, I need you to talk a little more, but I figure if the fumes ignite, I’ll have time to put it out before the fire melts you. I just hope your lips don’t fuse together. Course, then I could always just cut them back open with a box-cutter, but it just starts getting gruesome from there.” Charlie didn’t bother to look down at Kevin; he just stood and followed the trail of toilet paper to the door. He pulled out his lighter and clicked it open. “Last chance,” he said.

Kevin didn’t say anything.

Charlie took only a second to wonder if it was out of fear of the jar splashing onto his face or if he really was going to let it happen. “Okay,” Charlie said, then flicked the lighter.

“Wait,” Kevin said. His voice was just above a whisper, and Charlie barely heard it over the sound of his lighter flint being sparked.

“Did you say something?” Charlie asked.

“Wait,” Kevin repeated. “I’ll tell you where the meth is.”

“How about you tell me right now? I’d rather not get any closer at the moment.”

“How do I know you won’t just kill me?” Kevin said, his lips barely moving.

“Because if I believe you, then kill you just to find out you lied, I’ll be deprived of the opportunity to come back and kill you again.”

“I just delivered the last of the shipment to an old storm cellar just outside the city, not more than two miles from the lab.”

“Security?” Charlie said.

“No one—just a storm cellar,” Kevin barely whispered, his lips not moving.

“How do I know you aren’t leading me into a trap?”

“The shipment isn’t supposed to be picked up until ten, and they’re usually late.”

Charlie looked at his watch; it wasn’t quite eight. He definitely had time,
if
he trusted The Baker. “Got an address?” Charlie asked.

Kevin actually did and repeated it three times.

Charlie repeated it back and thanked him. He turned to walk out the door.

Once again, in that same quiet, trembling voice, there was a “Wait.”

Charlie looked back. “What?”

“You can’t leave me.”

“It’s not like I can trust that you’re telling the truth. I’m not just going to let go and hope for the best. That would be silly.” Charlie could see a tear roll down Kevin’s cheek, and he sighed. “Fine,” he said and walked back over to Kevin and snatched the jar off his head.

Kevin screamed out as a drop splashed on his cheek. He blinked a couple times and stared up at Charlie.

“What?” Charlie asked and took a sip out of the jar. He coughed and squinted as it burned his mouth and tongue. “You’ve never made moonshine before? I might have fibbed a little about this being pyroligneous, but I wasn’t lying about this stuff burning like hell and being flammable. I don’t know how those guys in the bayou do it.” Charlie set the jar down next to Kevin and told him, “Relax. You look like you could use some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” When he reached the door, he turned and spoke over his shoulder, “Though, if you’re lying to me, if I see even one person out there, I’m gonna come back here and melt your eyes. Anything you want to amend?”

“No,” Kevin said.

Charlie believed him.

Chapter 22

In some ways, Charlie kind of liked Kevin, for what that was worth. He seemed like a smart enough guy who’d just gotten caught up with bad people, and he figured his way out of it was to do bad things. When he realized there was money in those bad things, that sealed the deal, as well as his fate. That was always a mistake. Money always clouded judgment. Then again, that was exactly what Charlie was counting on.

Driving out into the night reminded Charlie of driving through the middle of Nebraska or even the desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. He’d seen both on a road trip when he turned twenty-one, and a few friends of his had decided they were going to take a trip out to the West Coast. Nebraska was painful, and past Omaha, there was a whole lot of nothing—just flat plains reminiscent of people living in frontier times. For all Charlie knew, there were homesteaders out there who still used outhouses and collected their water in wooden buckets from a well. Charlie kind of liked that idea, though, all that peace and quiet and having to fend for one’s self, with no other hassles or responsibilities beyond basic survival. Then again, wasn’t life always about survival
?

The storm cellar wasn’t all that far away, and the directions were simple. At one point, Charlie wondered if he should mention to Kevin that he was just a building down from the lab, that he’d driven in a wide circle before returning back to town and throwing him in a closet. Those old, thick cement walls were well insulated, probably with asbestos, since he hadn’t heard the police or fire engines come to put out the fire. He had heard some pounding on the door at one point, some beat cop working the door-to-door to check for witnesses, but the cop gave up easily enough, as was par for the course. His real concern was if Perez and Nikki had taken a stronger interest in following him. They weren’t exactly the best investigators in the world, but they were better than most he’d come across, and either one of them could turn into a problem real quick. Or an asset if he played his cards right, recalling Nikki in particular.

The truck slowed to a stop just a couple miles past what could be considered the Bluff Falls city limits; there was a town, and then there wasn’t, simple as that. The place Kevin had directed him to was a gutted-out farmhouse, a place that looked like it had been destroyed by a tornado a decade ago. It was really just the frame of a house next to a silo fitted with rusted and decrepit siding. Beyond the silo was a small barn, at least small for a horse barn; surprisingly, that structure didn’t look all that much worse for wear.

Charlie got out of the truck and walked around until he finally caught sight of a piece of metal sticking up through a mound of mud and dead grass. He kicked at the mound and saw that it was more like a sheet, and it pulled off in one piece. It was really a clever little bit of homemade camouflage. Under the sheet of metal lay a double-door of thick steel, like something left over from the Cold War, when people tried to build underground nuclear survival shelters. There was a brand new chain and lock strung through the handles, but Charlie popped it open easily enough with a couple pieces of wire. “When will people ever learn that size doesn’t matter?” Charlie said to the wind. He had to put his back into swinging the doors open, as they were easily two inches thick, and there was a good chance it actually could have withstood a bomb. There really was nothing like the Red Scare to get people to overdo things. Charlie was too young at that time to have enjoyed the frenzy, but he liked to watch the old spy movies and wondered what it must have been like to work in the old communist countries, maybe turn a debutant or an attaché to an ambassador. The closest thing Charlie had ever had the opportunity to work with was a warlord’s mistress and a bunch of guys with hard-ons for forty virgins. He wondered if any of the guys he’d sent to the next life got to cash that chip in. He hoped not. It would have been anticlimactic for all his hard work.

There were no lights or light switches, so he had to rely on his trusty lighter—stolen off a guy that had tried to pick Charlie’s pocket in Tripoli—to help him see where he was going. The stairs led down about ten feet into a large room, approximately twenty by twenty feet. There, right in the middle of it, sat a block of bags, ten by ten. Each was tightly stuffed and wrapped. There were 100 kilos, and if it was as good as The Baker seemed to think, it could very well be worth at least five million dollars. The deal was supposed to be for fifteen million, so Charlie knew Damon had to have stored the rest somewhere, but that was okay with him. There was no way someone willing to deal in 300 keys’ worth of meth was going to be all right with getting shorted on the deal. The 100 kilos stacked in front of Charlie would be enough. He looked back up the stairs and wondered how many trips it would take for him to load up The Baker’s truck.