Well Fed - 05 (3 page)

“They’re assholes, all right.”

“But they’re our assholes.”

“One’s enough for me. It does what I tell it.”

“Wait ’til you hit fifty.”

“Why fifty?”

“Forget I said that. But think about this. Although we screw up our noses at them, assholes are essential to the body. Important to the whole.”

Gus exhaled in sad disbelief. “Assholes are
what
? Jesus Christ, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Hey, remember that time when I was drivin’ around Annapolis one afternoon and had this guy shoot the hell outta my ride?”

Gus slumped. “That’s low, man,” he said, the guilt heavy in his chest. “I mean,
low
.”

“Still got that car too.”

Gus, lips as tight as piano wire, remembered that day all too clearly.

“Loved that car,” Adam went on, purposely ignoring his companion’s discomfort. “You know I made out with my wife in that thing? More memories in that backseat than I can remember. Still runs too, even though it took enough lead to make the body look like a salt shaker. A shitload of duct tape holds it together now. Plastic instead of a windshield. Damn thing flutters when––”

“
All right
,” Gus erupted. “All right. I got it. Stop rubbing it in. I’m sorry, okay? I’m
sorry
. You want me to get you a new car?”

“Nah. Only bringin’ that up to illustrate my point on assholes. See, I thought
you
were an asshole, right? One puckered-up, burnt-out, brown-eyed asshole. But I went back, and when I found you in the middle of the road, ripped up like you’d been sucked up by a snow blower and shot screaming into a wood chipper… well, shit chute or not, I couldn’t leave you there. You understand what I’m saying?”

Gus did but shied away from admitting it.

“I gave you a second chance, man. Shit. I
had
to. You were a
person
, lying facedown in the middle of dead territory. A piece of work who’d broken both arms and pissed and shit himself, no less.”

“Please tell me you kept that part to yourself.”

“Which part?”

Gus twirled a finger. “The parts about the shitting and the pissing.”

“Ah, hell, whattaya think I am? Sure, I kept quiet about that. Sure enough. Even an asshole has some measure of dignity. No need to bring shit like that up. No, sir.”

“Thanks.”

“Can’t say the same for Maggie, though.”

Gus lowered his head into a hand.

“Well, she
did
do the majority of the repairs on you,” Adam carried on. “Including the cleanup. And I know she talks to Thelma. What can you do? She’s the doc around here. Got us by the chicken necks and giblets. Anyway, point is, I thought you were an asshole, but you really weren’t. Not at all. Now, look at you. You’re the sheriff around here. Wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t take the chance. You see what I’m sayin’? Talbert. Sure, the man’s a dick. Can’t say I haven’t had my times with him ’cause I have. He’s another gut-clenched, rug-burned asshole, but there’s another side to him too. He and the others go out there and bring back things we need here. See? They risk their lives to improve ours. What does that tell you? You’ve seen him go out there. He’s not all bad. You just haven’t, well, discovered the good side yet.”

“Yeah,” Gus breathed out, unconvinced but understanding the reasoning.

“Anyway, Maggie and I figured that it might be an idea for you to go look for ’em.”

That widened Gus’s eyes harder than a finger probing for his prostate. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

But Adam wasn’t. Gus saw it on the old guy’s face.

“I can’t go out
there
! Who’ll protect the farm?”

“We’ve done okay when you weren’t here. And the zombies haven’t been around like before. Like you said, they’re thinning out. Might be, one day, we can go back to the way things were. Minus the creature comforts. We’ll do shifts like before…”

Gus barely heard the details. Adam’s request flickered across his mind like a short-circuiting neon sign.
Go out there and
look
for Talbert? Look for a guy he secretly hoped became a deadhead, just so he could cave in his skull?

Jesus H. Christ
.

“Anything else I could do?” Gus pleaded, very much willing to bargain.

“Nope,” Adam chuckled, thinking he was joking. “Just do that. Anita knows how you can get there. She’ll give you directions.”

“Maybe she should go.”

Another giggle. “You’re on fire today, ain’tcha? That would be a sight to see. Anita cruising on down the highway, on the prowl.”

At sixty-eight, Anita Little was the oldest in the group.

“Adam?” a little voice squeaked, and both men turned to see Becky and Chad standing just a few steps away. Both were seven years old, their cheeks wind kissed and ruddy from running about. Chad’s blond hair was buzzed short while Becky’s hung down to her waist in a straight cascade of brown. Four brown eyes the size of eggs peeped at Gus, melting any angst.

“Um, could you, um, like, fix our swing?” Becky asked in a raspy squeak.

“What happened to your swing, honey?” the older man asked.

“Well, it happened like this. I was swinging just fine, but when
Chad
took
his
turn, he stood up on the, um, on the seat, and the rope busted on one side, so, like,
nooow
we have no seat for our bums.”

“That true, Chad?”

Chad’s head hung between his shoulders, caught in embarrassment and probably unaccustomed to standing still. The kid had a wild streak in him, plus an everlasting tank of energy.

“Yessir,” the boy muttered, twisting his upper body left and right as if he’d been hooked through the shoulders and couldn’t quite wiggle off. “But it wasn’t my fault.”

“No? How’s that?”

“The swing was like, old, see.”

Becky had taken on a flat expression of disagreement, but to her credit, she let the boy talk.

“It would’ve broke
anyway
, so it’s best it happened
this
way, before someone got hurt.”

“That’s true, Becky?” Adam judiciously asked.

“Um, it is, but, like, it’s not. If he wasn’t, um, hopping on it?” At that point, she took a deep, clarifying breath and focused on a spot past them all––which prompted Gus also to check just to make sure nothing was amiss. “If he wasn’t hopping on it, we could still be swinging. But he did, so we aren’t.”

“You were hopping on it too,” Chad accused.

Becky rolled her eyes.

“I’ll fix it,” Adam declared. “Won’t take long. You guys got anything else to do?”

“Noooo,” they both chimed, which suggested
that
might need checking on as well.

“All right, you guys better be telling the truth,” Adam said. “Say seeya to your uncle Gus.”

Gus didn’t really like that. He wasn’t their uncle. A friend, yes, but not an uncle.

“Gus, are you mad?” Becky asked, charming him.

“Nah, I’m not mad.”

“Old Gus just has a lot on his mind,” Adam added with a wink. “He might be taking a trip.”

Fucking guy.
Gus flashed a glare.
Old, my ass
.

“And he never got a hug today either, so go on and give him a hug. That’ll make him feel better.”

“Aw, they don’t––” he got out, just before Becky ran up and threw her arms around his chest and squeezed for all she was worth. The embrace left Gus breathless, the shock as clear and crystallizing as plunging into tropical waters, except it was the cuddle of a little girl. Her hair smelled of unspoiled beaches, her clothes of hand-washed detergent. Gus’s frown dissolved under those little arms. A smile surfaced, and he hugged her back, held it for a few seconds, and released. All his fight was sucked out of him.

Then Chad roped him around the neck.

“You’re… choking… me,” Gus half croaked, half chuckled. The youngster was strong for his age. Chad eased off, but Gus’s arms engulfed the boy and hugged him for a three count before letting go.

“Seeya, Gus.” Chad waved as he departed after Adam and Becky.

“See you, Gus.” Becky beamed and pulled a few strands of hair out of her eyes.

Gus waved back, feeling a pang of sorrow watching them go. Adam glanced over his shoulder, his smile victorious. Clearly, that had been an orchestrated and outright weaselly move.

They disappeared around a corner of the main house, and Gus’s thoughts darkened.

Fucking Talbert.

The next morning, he packed a few supplies into the back of a beige SUV and left as the sun began to brighten a clear night sky.

He didn’t say good-bye to anyone.

Not even the children, who slept in warm beds, dreaming good dreams, while November chilled the world beyond their shared room.

The sun glared down on the 101, a highway war-painted with skid marks, freckled with craters, and splitting at the seams from hard-punching winters. Gus drove with the SUV’s sun visor down. His aluminum bat rested in the foot space of the passenger seat, rattling at times, its handle leaning toward him, ready to be grabbed if needed.

Autumn trees crowded the highway’s shoulders, streaking past in a blur of fire.

On road trips such as these, Gus missed the smell of burning leaves. That took him back to his painting days and a dislike of clearing gutters.

Cars, trucks, and long-haul trailers littered the road at times, forcing him to slow down and weave through broken mazes. Gus eyed a few cars lying on their sides in ditches. He’d seen similar collections of traffic before, every time he left his home and drove the trusted route down into the city of Annapolis.

Shadowy, out-of-focus shapes rested behind the steering wheels of some vehicles. Heads gleamed yellow and white, their mouths cracked open in shouts. Some doors hung open, as though the drivers and passengers had abandoned their rides. Ruts and potholes jarred the SUV at times, rudely surprising Gus. Weeds rose through the pavement’s crumbling fissures, their lengths stung by the cold and slumped over at wilting angles.

Exits for Middleton, Bridgetown, and Annapolis Royal came into view and flashed by. Anita Little had given him clear directions for this mysterious mansion, a remote home that wouldn’t be seen from the highway: “Stay on the 101, and upon your final approach to Digby, about two kilometers beyond an extra passing lane, watch for an ordinary gravel road, one that slinks off into a thick forest, where nothing can be seen beyond.”

Mortimer.

Anita, fidgeting in adorable self-consciousness of her gray hair, had told all she knew about the reclusive billionaire, her brown eyes moist and glistening. Once, she’d said, a limo pulled into a gas station just outside of Halifax, and out popped a couple of tanned dishes straight out of a swimwear competition, dressed in micro minis and tight tops—flown up from someplace tropical to Nova Scotia upon the invitation of Warren Mortimer. The driver did his best to corral the women, who might’ve been snorting something at the time, but one told the cashier they were headed to Digby for a private party.

Word of that episode had gotten to the townspeople of Digby and fueled gossip for a year.

Otherwise, not much was ever heard of that eccentric man living outside town.

Hired servants came into Digby on a regular basis, polite, but every bit as elusive as Mortimer. They lived on the hundred or so acres of land Mortimer had purchased around 2004 to 2005. He flew in architects and work crews to build a home to be the envy of the Hamptons, or so a few of those hired hands drunkenly let slip while letting off steam at a local bar. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians and bricklayers, landscapers and gardeners, all had signed contracts swearing them to secrecy regarding the work they did. No one knew what went on there as a security gate, and guards prevented anyone venturing too far along the dirt road leading to the estate. One story told of a young, overly amorous couple actually parking within twenty feet of the checkpoint without knowing it, and flashlights were shined on them at the worst possible time.

“White ass up and jiggling, I heard,” Anita giggled with a charm that prompted Gus to bare his hockey-player smile.

Mortimer couldn’t keep out every prying eye in the years following the mansion’s enigmatic construction. Deliveries were made, and the drivers would later talk in local bars. Helicopters and small-engine planes would buzz over the property, and stories of a checkered tablecloth of immaculate greenery and glowing buildings flittered through Digby. Tennis courts, raceways, gardens, waterways, and false lagoons were all tastefully arranged within lines of apple trees and cultivated land.

No one had ever laid eyes on the man, and with so much open space at his disposal, was it any wonder? Mortimer lived in a world of his own design.

As time went on, Digby forgot about the man beyond the edge of society.

Anita herself hadn’t thought about the man in years, until asked.

Two wrong turnoffs led Gus into deep timberland, which ended in no-man’s-land, and simply getting back onto the road became a time-consuming challenge.

By early afternoon, he finally discovered the hidden driveway.

A dirt road branded by fresh tire tracks snaked off into the faded fall brush. Gus eased off the highway, passing through shadows and looking everywhere at once. He drove along one of the roughest stretches he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. Potholes and shards of rock punished the tires of the all-wheel drive, and Gus wondered if having such a shitty road was part of the grand deterrent as he bounced around in his seat. A web of tree limbs dampened the light, making the woods seem dreary. The rough lane switched back into a curve sharp enough to poke an eye out. Gus eased around the killer bend and spied a white metal gate, opened and pushed aside. It hung off a steel post, opposite a guard station built atop a cement foundation. A dark lick of smooth pavement continued another twenty meters before curving out of sight. Something wide and metallic lay along the road, pushed to either side at the halfway point.

Gus stopped the SUV, turned off the engine, and sat. He contemplated the end of the gravel road and the beginning of the pavement ahead. His fingers played a nervous piano on the steering wheel.