Dirtbags (26 page)

“Shut up,” Calvin said. “Why you want Tank Tillotson dead?”

“I don’t,” said Bubba.

Calvin smacked him in the ear with the rolling pin. Bubba howled.

“Why you want him dead?” Calvin asked. “Think about it, if you need to.”

“This is ridiculous,” Bubba moaned. “Jesus, I don’t know. He owed me money.”

“Did he?”

“Sure,” said Bubba. “Fifty bucks, I reckon. We bet on the Tiger game, and he never paid up.”

Rhonda shook her head. “You’d kill a man over fifty bucks? That’s pathetic.”

“A hundred bucks.” Bubba jerked at the zip-ties, but wasn’t going anywhere. “Whatever, man. I don’t care. Just please don’t hit me in the head no more.”

“You want me to get the money from him?” Calvin asked.

“What?”

“You want me to work him over before I kill him for you?” Calvin slapped the rolling pin into his palm. “I can do all sorts of things to people that owe you money. Slowly. I can make them think twice about ever getting to know you. Or make them think no more. That’s why you hired me. I can do some Abu-Ghraib type stuff to them, if you want.”

“I don’t care,” Bubba said. “Do whatever you want to him. But can I go? I gave you the name.”

“No, you can’t go,” Calvin said. “Because this is just the beginning, boss.” He looked to Rhonda. “Will you be fine here alone?”

She shrugged. “You sure you don’t need me to go with you?”

“No need,” he said, shaking his head. “I know how to handle a crank dealer.” He turned to Bubba. He set down the rolling pin and picked up instead his knife from where it had been sitting on the table. He took first one step, then another toward Bubba Greene, tied up and sitting at the kitchen table.

“What?” Bubba asked. “Now you’re going to kill me?”

“Kill you?” Calvin smiled and shook his head. “No, I’m not going to kill you, Mister Greene. I’m going to
work
for you.”

***

Rhonda reckoned folks saw Calvin Cantrell everywhere. Somebody on the news said they saw him at the supermarket Tuesday last and it closed down until Sheriff Axel and the FBI could get there. No one used the walking trails anymore except the Federal agents, and when they found the pup tent the two of them had used that first week, they liked to have shut down the entire forest. Every day, authorities combed the hills and hollows in and around Lake Castor until some report came over the radio that Calvin had been spotted somewhere else, then they went running.

Parents told their kids about Calvin. They’d rush out at dusk, shooing their children inside for fear that they would be taken at dark by the vicious, mean killer.  The same parents threatened them with his name if they didn’t do their homework or clean their room. As if failure to obey resulted in a number carved into their tiny, precious chests.

Lake Castor’s newspaper had been a weekly for as long as Rhonda could remember, but after Calvin got things really going, special editions appeared nearly every day. Every edition using the same photograph of him from two years ago, one she knew they’d found while searching their bedroom. The papers often sold out. Folks needed to know where he’d been seen last or if they found another couple bodies or what number he’d gotten up to. With all the government agents and news reporters and TV cameramen suddenly in town, buying stuff, eating at restaurants, interviewing the good kind folk, it was almost as if Calvin Cantrell had become his own industry.

Calvin Cantrell was good for business.

He was usually the top story every night on the eleven o’clock news. Rhonda wheeled the TV into the kitchen so Bubba could watch. She spooned his food into his mouth and cleaned his cuts, put ice on his bruises. Rhonda thought of all things, Bubba should have gotten
meaner
. She reckoned she would if she’d been tied to a chair and beat in the face with a rolling pin night after night. But he didn’t.  No, Bubba had become quite soft. He’d taken on a sort of innocence. Head lolling this way and that, like a child, as Rhonda slowly fed him his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“Calvin will be home any minute,” she told him as she spooned him some mashed potatoes. “He’ll be tired, so let’s not stress him out too much, okay?”

Bubba also had issues focusing properly. He’d look at the TV, and she had no way of knowing if he understood everything they reported. His own picture would flash on the screen from time to time, as folks still searched for him. Sometimes, he would stop chewing, as though the skill was forgotten, and the food dribbled down his chin and onto his shirt. She held the spoon just shy of his mouth and competed for his attention.

“Have you thought about another name for Calvin?” she asked.

Bubba looked to her. His mouth tried to form the words.

“You better think of it before he gets home,” she said. “I don’t know how many more knocks to the head you can take.”

His head bounced rapidly a couple times, as if he were trying to jar free the vocabulary. Suddenly, the room was pitched with a horrible stench. Rhonda recoiled from the man and shrieked.

“Dear God, Bubba,” she howled. “Did you just shit yourself again? What did we tell you about that? I’m sick of cleaning up your mess!”

Bubba’s tongue worked overtime. He fought valiantly to speak. Finally, he managed: “Let me go, Rhonda. Please.”

Rhonda crinkled her nose. “You’re a disgusting man, Bubba.” She went to the bathroom and fetched some towels. She returned and ran hot water in the sink. As it steamed, she looked piteously at him. “You once told me I wasn’t loyal to nobody. That I wasn’t capable of it. Do you remember that?”

Bubba sat in his own filth and watched her. He couldn’t keep his left eye still.

“That’s right,” she said. “One night, I come to you. And you looked me right in the eye and said a girl of my stripe wouldn’t never be anything but disloyal. Through and through is what you said. You remember that?”

Bubba’s mouth quivered. He didn’t seem to know if he made a sound or not.

“You was wrong, Bubba Greene,” she said. “I mean, look at me. My husband has left me alone with you plenty of times while he runs out to do your killing, hasn’t he? I reckon I could have set you free a couple days ago or, better yet, run off with you. Who do you reckon could find us? Nobody. Not even Calvin. Have you ever thought about that?”

A tear formed in Bubba’s good eye. It trickled down his cracked and beaten face.

“Or every time my husband busted you in the head with that rolling pin,” she said, sweet as could be. “I guess I could have taken this here gun and stopped him. But that wouldn’t have been very
loyal
of me, would it?” She climbed aboard Bubba’s lap, straddled him like she used to do in the old days. She thought she felt a reflex of his down there. She ran a finger along her lower lip and smiled. “You see, every time he pops you on your noggin. Every time you shit yourself because you’ve long gone simple. Every time I sit by and watch the devil visit you in your eyes, I tell myself you was wrong. You was dead wrong about me, Bubba Greene. What you should have said was that I wasn’t loyal to
you.
”

She hopped off him. His head rolled forward and he didn’t seem to have the strength to pick it back up on his own.

“So I will clean your shit one more time, Bubba Greene,” she said. “For me, it’s worth it. All of it is worth it. And I hope you think over and over about how you talked to me that night when I come to you for help.”

By the time Calvin got home, most of the smell was gone. He took a shower and washed the blood from him, then found some nice clothes and had dinner at the table. He was in high spirits.

“I wanted to tell you the great news before they say it on the TV,” he said.

Rhonda wasn’t sure if he were addressing her or Bubba, so she arched her eyebrows in an effort to appear interested.

“Those two he sent me after today made numbers nineteen and twenty,” he said. “You know what that means.”

“No, honey. What does it mean?”

“I’ve passed Paul John Knowles and Sergei Ryakhovsky.” The smile on his face meant she should say more, but had nothing. She waited. “Paul John Knowles. The Cassanova Killer. Come on, seriously? And you’ve never heard of Ryakhovsky either? The Balashika Ripper?”

“Did they make a movie about them?”

“To hell with a movie,” Calvin said. “Knowles had eighteen, and Ryakhovsky had nineteen. I’m at twenty. Next pair ties me with William Bonin.” He noticed her blank stare. “The Freeway Killer.”

“I thought Henry Lucas was the Freeway Killer.”

Calvin shook his head. “No, he killed up and down the interstates, but officially, he was called The Confession Killer. Didn’t have a nice enough ring to it.” He looked at Bubba, then ate a forkful. “Think about it, honey: I’ve passed Dahmer and am only thirteen behind Gacy. Ain’t that a hoot?” He lay his hand across Rhonda’s. “We’re close. I can feel it. This is very special.”

Rhonda nodded. She looked to Bubba who watched the TV. “So what’s next?”

“Next I imagine Booger here gives me another name,” he said. His voice rose a couple decibels, knowing Bubba’s hearing had gone south a few nights previous. “Who else you got, Bubba? I just took care of them two dancers for you, but I don’t think they stole nothing from you to be honest. I’m starting to think you’re fibbing a little.”

Bubba didn’t look away from the TV set.

“Don’t make me come round with the rolling pin, Mr. Greene,” Calvin said. “I’m going to get a name from you if I have to beat it out of you. Who you want me to kill next?” He looked to Rhonda. “What’s really tragic is there’s no one that Bubba needs to make talk. I would love a shot at getting someone to talk. Can you imagine?”

On the news behind them, the reporters speculated on Calvin’s whereabouts. They interviewed Sheriff Axel and an FBI guy. They showed pictures of Rhonda Cantrell and Bubba Greene, both of whom had been reported missing a ways back.

Calvin picked up the gore-spattered rolling pin. Bubba’s eyes filled with saltwater. He didn’t take his eyes from the TV.

“Come on, Mr. Greene,” Calvin said. “Can’t you think of someone who pissed you off? Somebody you’re itching to see dead?”

Bubba rocked in his chair. Slowly at first, but then building up to a steady, angry rocking that, honestly, Calvin found impressive.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Rhonda.

“I don’t know,” Calvin said. “He’s getting excited. Look at him.” He lifted the rolling pin.

“Wait,” said Rhonda. She pointed to his face. His stare was fixed and firm at the television set. They both followed it. Calvin dropped the rolling pin.

There on the screen was the good, right Judge Grimm Menkin himself. Rattling on and on about Bubba Greene and what happens when you allow that kind of filth into the community and how, thanks to the existence of his miserable doublewide strip club, folks like Calvin Cantrell and his harlot wife ran about, killing without abandon.

He went on to say all of this could have been avoided by sidestepping sin and taking the opportunity to root it out where it stood. To stop it before it bubbled forth like a cesspool, taking with it the tortured souls of our men, women, and children. He went on to equate the troubles of the county—the mill closing, the people leaving, the poverty, the drug abuse, the alcoholism, and of course, the murders—on Bubba Greene and his den of iniquity.

He went on to ask everyone to join him in prayer.

But none of this was what Calvin Cantrell was thinking as he watched Judge Menkin close his eyes and lift his serene, severe head to the heavens. No, rather he remembered something else. His mind recalled an earlier meeting. He turned from the television set and looked at Bubba Greene with newfound pride and respect. He smiled and clapped the old man on the shoulder.

“Well done, Mr. Greene,” Calvin said. “Very well done indeed.”

22

Judge Grimm Menkin told every news camera in Lake Castor exactly what he had on his mind. Such had been his habit and such it would be until called to Glory. He’d long crusaded against establishments like the 809. He’d long proposed banning the sale of alcohol within the county. He’d long argued that folks like Bubba Greene hindered the good citizens of the former mill town. Now, with the hubbub surrounding Calvin Cantrell, he could stand back, point a finger, and with the conviction and authority bestowed from the sky up above, say
I told you so
.

He stood before of a bank of microphones and a host of cameras and spouted that shit until his voice ran hoarse. He jumped up and down, praised Jesus and damned the works of Satan straight to hell. He quoted Scripture. He led a prayer among the journalists and townspeople. He even sang. At one point in his long, storied career as the county’s top jurist, these theatrics would have worn folks patience rather thin. But the spate of gruesome murders and the countywide fear that followed brought Menkin more attention than he could have ever drummed up on his own.

These days, he held his audience captive. After they’d read the articles, the blog posts, gossiped about it in the supermarket past being blue in the face, heard the press conferences . . . people wanted to continue to talk about Calvin Cantrell. People wanted to know what they had done to deserve this punishment wrought upon them. People wanted to know how to avoid it from ever happening again. The only person offering that kind of solace was Judge Grimm Menkin.

And once he’d fulfilled those duties, even Grimm Menkin had a home to go to. Late into the evening, every night he would retire, spent from a day of doing the Lord’s work. He would park his town car in the garage, then walk the battered pavement to his front door, and call it a day. Taking in a cup of hot tea and a small sandwich. Kneeling before his bed and reading his Bible verses and praying for the day when he could walk hand in hand with his Savior.

That day had come.

While it was unusual for the doorbell to ring at such a late hour, it was not beyond what could be expected. The life of public service taught Grimm that his availability to his constituents stretched well beyond the typical workday. During the reign of Calvin Cantrell’s terror, he anticipated a late night phone call, perhaps an update, a discovery or, if God allowed it, good news. That night in particular, when the bell rang, he mouthed a silent prayer, dropped the ribbon between the pages of his Bible to mark his place, and shuffled into his slippers.