The Bully of Order (26 page)

T
wo men rounded the
corner, dragging something, so I hopped down the bank to hide.

It was Tartan that spotted me. He whistled, and Bellhouse was suddenly at his shoulder. I stood up and waved hello. I hadn't really been hiding at all.

“Get up this fucking hill and be counted,” Bellhouse said.

Tartan stood at the road's edge, bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. Behind him was what looked to be a man's corpse strapped to a door that had been ripped from its jamb, hinges dangling. “Cold for swimmin and yer under-outfitted for fishin. The fuck you doin?” Tartan said.

“Nothin. Walkin.”

Bellhouse slid a stub of a cigar out of his hatband and lit it. His teeth clamped to it like a golden vise. “Boyerton's walking too. He's in your footsteps, and you don't even know it.”

Tartan caught me looking at the body. “You know a man named Gutowski?”

“No.”

“Then quit starin.”

“What if I were Chacartegui?” I said. “What if it were him instead of me off the hill by the bridge?”

Bellhouse blew the ash from his cigar. “Listen to the little darling.” He turned and pissed from the bridge. Two pistols bulged under his coat, and in the small of his back, if the stories were true, there was an ornate, three-pocketed leather holster used to carry a pair of pliers and two knives, one short and one long. He used the pliers to pull teeth.

“I gave you a dollar coin once,” Tartan said.

“I still have it.” Of course I didn't, but lying seemed appropriate, more so than having handed the coin over to Oliver Boyerton for taking his eye.

Bellhouse buttoned up and came toward me and crowded me and sniffed at me like a bipedal dog, then gave me a slap and took my shotgun away. “Do you want an adventure?” His slight German accent edged through his words.

I'd felt the same emotion pass over me when Matius was whipping me and I quit struggling and just let him have it, let him take what he wanted.

Tartan sat down on the corpse and rested there awkwardly, exhaled, then stretched his jaw. “You ask me, let him go icicle. Farewell, Ophelia.”

“I didn't ask you. He'll come with us.”

“We got other business, Hank. Leave him and let's get to it.”

“No, I got a notion here,” Bellhouse said to the sky. “We'll plant Gutowski, then take the boy out for a show. Boyerton'll have him within the week, anyhow. We'll let him have some excitement and thrilling adventures to send him off. A good for the bad, you see?” Bellhouse scowled in Tartan's direction.

“We'll pay for this act of kindness same as if it were viciousness.”

“Like it matters to you, sweet or bitter,” Bellhouse said. “String him a line so he can help us with the drag.”

Tartan smashed a hole in the door panel with his boot heel and wrapped a length of chain around the frame and handed it to me. Bellhouse slid my shotgun under the tarp with the corpse. They took up their lines and we started off. The chain froze in my palms, but I wouldn't let go for anything. A lone raven appeared in the road and stared us down. Tartan kicked snow at it and it flew away.

The tide was out and the flats were covered with a curtain of mist that glowed in the darkness. The water hardly moved, whispered Olympic. Tartan and Bellhouse surveyed the barren grounds before them, the tidal void. When they pulled back the tarp, Tartan found the lantern and lit it and let it hang from his fist, the handle squeaking like a mouse.

“Don't look too hard, you'll lose yer dinner.” Tartan passed me the lantern.

“Haven't ate dinner,” I said.

“We had steaks,” Bellhouse said, looking into my eyes.

I watched as Tartan tied the heavy chain around Gutowski's torso, and then his legs. The bloody bedsheet fell away and the battered face looked like it had yet to form, it was so badly beaten, a blossom before the bud. A smashed eyeball hung outside the socket. Tartan yanked his hip waders from under the dead man's legs and unrolled them and spread them flat on the ground. He took off his boots and parked his sockless, greasy feet on the waders. He then stepped from the waders onto his toppled boots and carefully pulled the waders over his pants, and fastened the straps over his shoulders. Seemingly satisfied with his outfit, he snagged Gutowski's wrist and dragged him out into the marsh, moving through the water quietly like a man going bird hunting.

“We walk the wavecrests,” Bellhouse said, showing me his teeth, silver and gold, a presentation. “We swim and never get wet. You get my meaning?”

I gave a nod, and it was all that I could do.

He looked away like he'd heard something behind him. “Yes, everyone knows what you did to Boyerton's daughter.” Then without warning he turned away and walked back toward the road. There was a light coming toward us.

Tartan was still out in the marsh. I set the lantern on the bloody door, not knowing if I should put it out or not. I squatted and warmed my hands over the glass, thought about picking up my shotgun and making a run for it but didn't. Two more bridges crossed and a left turn, and I might find my father. What good would that be?

A few minutes later Bellhouse returned. Tartan came up the bank, breathing heavy, water streaming down his waders. “Who was on the road?”

“Someone searching for the boy.”

“Cut him loose,” Tartan said. “He ain't worth the trouble.”

“No, they're gone now,” Bellhouse said. “He can stay. What about you? Are you done?”

“He's mired to the hilt,” Tartan said.

“The boy saw what you did.”

“I can get more chain.”

Bellhouse laughed like a hiccup. Tartan took off his waders and chucked them in my face and then put on his boots. He darkened the lantern and we took up our lines and hauled the broken door back down the road toward town.

When we could see the lights, Bellhouse tapped the brim of my hat. “Keep your head down until we get inside.”

We left the door leaning against the shack it had been stolen from. I thought it must've been Gutowski's place. Tartan had the chain over his shoulder and his waders pinched in one hand, the cold lantern in the other. I had my shotgun mummied inside my coat with my finger on the trigger. Walking with them I felt tough and vicious and mostly included. I decided that I'd ride this boat to the dead end of it. Put the coin on my lips, I'm on my way.

The Coast Sailor's Union was housed in one of the newer buildings, suddenly old because it hadn't burned with the rest at the waterfront. A balcony wrapped around three sides, but there were no stairs leading up. The windows were lit on the second floor, but when we walked through the downstairs doors it was dark.

All I could make out were the shadows of tables and chairs, lockers against the wall. Up the stairs it got warmer with each step, and when we hit the double doors, it felt like we'd found the boilers. Twenty men at least were at the tables on the floor, and another ten or fifteen were at the bar along the wall. Waitresses were carrying trays of drinks, and the bartender was a woman too, Bellhouse's woman, Delilah. She had blond hair that was cut to her shoulders. Her face was smiling and friendly even when her back was turned to the bar and I could see her face in the mirror. She saw us then, in the mirror, and spun around. Someone whistled and a table cleared and Tartan pushed me into a chair. He slammed the chain and his waders on the tabletop and broke a few glasses. Bellhouse drank from the bottle that was left behind.

“How goes the night fishin, Hank?” a man asked.

“With every word you cut bait.”

Tartan smiled and took the bottle, drank, and passed it to me. I still had the shotgun under my coat, and to maintain concealment I leaned way back in my chair with my legs spraddled like I was the king returned. I tipped the bottle back, and while it was up, Tartan got his hand under my coat and disarmed me. Chain, waders, shotgun, broken glass on the table. Delilah arrived with a fresh bottle and glasses and sat on Bellhouse's lap.

“Who'd you bring back with you?” she asked.

“Un mari brutal,” said Bellhouse.

“He's too young to be married anyhow.”

“I'm not married.”

“Free, white, and single,” Tartan said.

The bottle was uncorked, and glasses poured full. Bellhouse was smoking. Tartan drank and refilled his own glass and drank again. The room had returned to the condition it was before we'd been acknowledged. Delilah's eyes were blue and lovely, and she watched me, waiting for something.

“Have another,” she said.

I did and thanked her. On my way to the coffin. Drinking with killers. Bellhouse gave me a cigar and told me to call him Hank. A piano was uncovered, and a man in a tall pointy hat began to play. Men at the bar threw peanuts at the pianist, but it didn't seem to bother him. They called him Rodney, Rodney the Mucker, or Muck. I'd heard him play for years but hadn't seen him except far away in the street. He had a humped back and hands purpled from burn scars—lye was the story I'd heard. Debts unpaid.

I turned to Hank and told him it was a miracle that the man could play at all with his hands the way they were.

“He learned after.”

“After what?”

“After I burned his fucking hands, that's what after.”

Tartan was watching me. Delilah was watching me, her hand stroking Hank's scarred bald head. I realized I was still wearing my hat and took it off and set it on the table. Faces turned to see me, and some showed signs of recognition, Boyerton's bounty. Hank met their glances, and they looked away. Under the vulture's wing, sharpening the reaper's blade.

Liquor was poured, and I didn't resist. I drank what was given. We ate sausages and mashed potatoes later. The hall slowly emptied, and stragglers joined our table. Bellhouse dragged me outside when I started to throw up. He held me by the back of the neck and shoved my face through the rails on the balcony. When I was finished, I sat on the wet boards and felt the cold. Bellhouse was smoking a cigar by the door. I tried to stand, but the pink womb of sky flipped onto the street and I fell on my face.

I woke in the corner of the hall, covered by a blanket on a dog's bed. Tartan stood over me and gave me another glass of whiskey, and I took it. Not so bad now, I rejoined the table. Muck was back at the piano. The McCandliss brothers were on the stairs, but Tartan told them to hoof it, kick rocks. They saw me and waved, surprised. Tartan had to tell them two more times to leave. I kept drinking and threw up again, this time on the floor. Bellhouse made me clean it up. I had beer after that. Bellhouse told a story about killing a man with a farrier's file. When he was finished, I told them what I'd done to my uncle and for what reason. Tartan began to laugh and laugh and couldn't contain it. Bellhouse flicked his cigar at the big man and then they were on their feet at each other's throats. I got between them and worked them apart and they sat back down. I thought I could be their brother or their son.

“You killed him,” Tartan affirmed.

I nodded yes, I did.

“Because he was the one that killed yer mother.”

Again, a nod. These were men, killers, and I was one of them. Of course I was.

“Righteous cause,” Bellhouse said, cuffed me on the arm. “You did right by her.”

“If she were dead,” Tartan said.

“She is,” I said.

“Not when she left here,” Tartan said. “Not when I bought her passage to San Francisco.”

“Yer lying,” I said. Now I was on my feet.

“Sit, boy,” Bellhouse said.

“He's lying.”

“He doesn't make a habit of it.”

“She ain't dead. She left. I helped her. Doc Haslett and I set it up. I admired her cunning, cold as it was to you.”

“She wouldn't.”

“She fuckin did.”

Bellhouse was laughing, and Tartan soon joined in. I drained my glass and felt sick so I went back to the dog bed. They stayed up and drank till dawn. Muck quit an hour before they did. My mind spun through hellish scenarios where I was fighting Tartan or killing Matius again and again, the wet mash of his face. The problem was that we'd all been fooled. And I was sleeping on a dog's bed, the most comfortable bed I'd ever known. And where was the dog?

I woke to Tartan opening the window and connecting a stovepipe and sending it out so he could start the fire and cook eggs. It took him ten minutes to complete the chore and I watched him the whole time. Wind blew in the open window and I curled into my blanket. Bellhouse appeared from a door I hadn't noticed in the back. Delilah followed him, dressed in a red silk robe. Her bare feet were fascinating. I didn't hear Tartan sneaking up on me. He kicked me in the ass and stole my blanket, then clamped a hand on my neck and dragged me to the table and sat me down.

“Flea bite,” Bellhouse said to me when I sat down.

“Poor thing,” Delilah said. “How's yer head?” She touched my hand. Before I could answer her, Tartan served me coffee and a plate of steaming eggs with buttered bread.

“He didn't keep any liquor down. Why would he feel bad if he ain't been drinkin?” Tartan said.

“I'm fine,” I said. “Thank you for breakfast.”

“Fuck off,” Tartan said.

Delilah's nipples were raised against the thin fabric of her robe. We ate and the wind howled in the window.

“What'll you do today?” she asked me, without looking up from her plate.

“I don't know. Hadn't thought about it.”

“He's coming with us,” Bellhouse said.

“Is he?” Tartan said.

“I think he should go home,” Delilah said. “You boys play too rough for him.”

“This slint plays rough. Ask his uncle.”

“Ask Teresa Boyerton.”

I took a swig of the coffee and burned my tongue raw.

“Yer mother,” Tartan said. “She must not a thought you were worth keeping.”