Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) (11 page)

“A misunderstanding?”

“I know. Weak, right? But I guess that was something I
wanted to believe, because I believed it until all this other business went down.”

I said, “Did you get a look at this person?”

She nodded. “Hell, I'm human. I admit I peeked. Guy told me to stay in the back of the house, but I squared Eric away in his room and came back and watched through the curtains. Big dude, with a head like a muck bucket and a beard. Any ideas?”

“Doesn't ring any gongs,” I said. “Way I see it, there are a couple of possibilities here.”

“Okay. Let's hear them.”

I said, “Number one, Guy ran into trouble while researching this story with Dwayne Mays. His wife tells me he'd gotten tangled up with a guy who calls himself Jump Down.”

“Jump Down? That's ridiculous,” she said, interrupting.

“I think so, too, but that's his coal mine nickname.”

“As in, he jumps down from high places?”

I shook my head. “More like he jumps down your throat. Anyway, he's one of the bad ones.”

“You're starting to worry me here.”

“I don't mean to,” I said. “Means anything, my suspicion is that Guy is hiding, not hurt. Whoever killed Dwayne Mays and Luster left them out in the open for everyone and his Aunt Mabel to inspect their handiwork. The cops disagree, but I think someone is sending someone else a message. If someone did hurt Guy, I think they'd want us to know it.”

She nodded at that without looking too convinced. She said, “You said there was another possibility.”

“Maybe more than one. But the likeliest I can think of is that Guy's run away from something completely unrelated.”

“Or someone.”

“Or someone,” I agreed. “You have any idea who or what that might have been?”

She knew, and she knew I knew. Or guessed that I knew. She didn't look too thrilled about it, either. “I got a pretty good idea.”

“Is he eight years old and not allowed outside much these days?”

“You're a pretty good detective.”

“Not really,” I said. “He and Beckett share a resemblance.”

“I guess he does. Why do they always look like the one you'd like to forget?”

And I couldn't help but think of Anci and how my bottomless love for her was forever mingled with painful reminders. “I honestly don't know,” I said. “Except life is hard and hell is hot.”

“Who said that?”

“My daddy.”

“Sounds tough.”

“Tough as old boots,” I said. “And—much as it pains me to admit—a good man to have nearby when the chips were down. I once saw him stand down a herd of anti-union thugs with nothing more than rolled-up sleeves and grit.”

“Folks aren't tough like that anymore, even the ones who are pretty strong. And Guy isn't even that. His mother was a tiger but his father was a squish, and Guy took after him. I love him, and I'd like to have him around, but he's the kind of guy you'd spend your whole life worrying about breaking.”

“Let me ask you this: how'd he seem the last time you saw him?”

“That's what's been bothering me. Something was on his mind. You can always tell when Guy has something on his mind. But he wouldn't say what.”

“You ever get any sense of what it might have been?”

“Don't know. I asked him. Pestered, really, but I couldn't squeeze it out of him,” she said. “Let me tell you, that was uncharacteristic. This is a person who likes his chatter. A billboard keeps better secrets. My best guess is it had something to do with this story he was working on with Dwayne. Or maybe it was these idiots he's fallen in with.”

“What idiots?”

“A group of liberal wackos he'd hooked up, probably to chase skirts. They call themselves the Friends of Crab Orchard, I think, but as far as I can tell they're just a bunch of new age fruitcakes who want a little attention.”

That rang a distant bell. And then I remembered: Susan had mentioned them. Beckett's environmental club. “You ever run into any of them?”

“The only way I'd do that is with the Ford,” she said. She must have seen my raised eyebrows. “Safe to say I don't favor their view of the world.”

“I guess not,” I said. “Any idea who was in the group, besides Guy?”

“Nope.”

“He never mentioned any of them?”

“He never did,” she said. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, Tony, I guess.”

“That sounds like a person to me,” I said. “Tony who?”

“Pelzer. Friend of Guy's from way back.” She stabbed her palm twice with a forefinger. “Ass. Hole. But Guy thought he was a hoot. Tony used to do some private security work. At
least that's what he called it. Frankly, Tony's office was out of his place at Bluegill Point, and there wasn't much to it other than the occasional strong-arm job or mall security gig. But all of a sudden Guy had him around more and more, and he even followed Guy into this group of his. Well, that didn't register. Tony Pelzer thinks the EPA ought to be turned into an empty office suite. I asked Guy if he was paying Tony to keep an eye on him. Bodyguard him, I mean, but he got angry and went off on a rant about what a great friend Tony was, which I took to mean that Tony was soaking him good.” She rolled her eyes. “Why do so many men have terrible friends?”

“I guess I don't know,” I said. “Sympathy, maybe?”

She looked at me with pity. “Oh, honey.”

“Okay, maybe not,” I said. “You say Pelzer is out at Bluegill Point?”

“Round those parts, yeah.”

“Everything's happening out at the lake,” I said.

“Well, the lake's where things happen.”

I got up and thanked her for her time and the coffee, and she walked me to the door. Outside, the boys were still lingering on the front porch. One of them was flipping around a butterfly knife.

“Hey, one last thing,” Mary-Kay said as I made my way down the steps. “When you find Beckett, would you deliver a message for me?”

“Sure, anything.”

“Tell him there's more to life than running away.”

That depended on who or what was doing the chasing, I thought but didn't say. I walked back to the truck, thinking of all the people in my life who could stand to hear that same message.

T
ony Pelzer was in the book. I phoned and left a message asking him to call me back as soon as possible. I didn't want him to think it was a sales call or some other foolishness, so I mentioned Guy Beckett's name. If he failed to call back after that, I figured that'd tell me something. What, I couldn't yet guess. Next, I called Peggy. She had a free hour between 12:30 and 1:30, and that's what time it was. She wasn't as gruff as we'd left it before, but she wasn't exactly friendly, either.

She said, “Well, at least you're not dead yet.”

“There's that.”

“You're not, are you?”

“I don't think so,” I said. “But I did shoot someone with a beanbag today.”

“Come again?”

“Nothing,” I said. “How's Anci?”

“Checked in on her just a few minutes ago over lunch,” she said. “She wants you to know that she harbors a grievous dislike for John Knowles, but she's otherwise fine.”

“Who?”

“The
Separate Peace
guy,” Peggy said. “The kids are reading it this year, and Anci's not the least bit happy about it.”

“I'll have a chat with her,” I said, but secretly I was proud. Like all good-hearted young people, I'd hated
A Separate Peace
, too. “And how about you?”

“Me? I'm nervous as the sacrificial goat at the GOP convention.”

“Me, too.”

“Not helping matters is knowing that, somewhere out there, Jeep Mabry . . .”

“Now that I think of it, maybe we should be careful what we say on the open line,” I said, interrupting her.

“What?”

“It's something you hear people say, you watch enough television thrillers.”

“You're kidding?”

“Only half,” I said, but maybe it was less than that. “And I'd say Jeep is maybe preferable to Jump Down or one of his gang sniffing around. Or Round-Face.”

“Assuming he or they have anything to do with it in the first place.”

“Assuming that, yes.”

“I got to tell you, darling, the more I sit with it, the more the whole thing sounds like a stretch to me.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Someone killed Dwayne Mays, and I don't think what happened to Matthew Luster was a suicide, but it does feel like we're missing a pretty big piece of the pie here somewhere.”

“We? Who's this ‘we' you speak of, white man?”

“Okay, okay. Fair enough. You're not ready yet to join our firm.”

“Speaking of firm.”

“That's one of my favorite benefits, too.”

“That and a full pension.”

“Hopefully, anyway. See you tonight?”

That was the question I'd been waiting to ask. Nervously, too, like that goat.

Peggy thought about it for a moment and then said, “I'll
bring Anci around after work, see what we can work out for dinner that doesn't involve you two idiots eating Velveeta over scrambled eggs.”

“All right.”

“Someone's got to look after you, after all.”

“They sure do.”

“It's just no good leaving you to your own devices.”

“It's just really not.”

“I love you, stupid.”

“I love you,” I said. “Should I call you a name now, too?”

“Not unless you want to wake up looking straight up at the bottom of your own feet. How about just call me beautiful?”

“You are that.”

“Well, I already knew it.”

There was a moment of silence on the line. Then Peggy said, “Okay, maybe we can stop acting like blushing teenagers now.”

“That would be a relief. I had a hard enough time the first time around.”

“Me, too. And I'm not sure I ever learned my lesson. Probably I didn't. Where are you off to now, Sherlock?”

“Believe me, you don't want to know,” I said.

“Believe me,” she said, “you're right.”

I
ndian Vale was along the way to my next stop, so I ducked in to check on the house. I had to feed the animals, one, but I also wanted to lay eyes on it again, even if we'd only been away a few hours. Everything seemed fine at first. The clouds had pushed off, and the sun had come out, and the Vale was bright and clear in the cool air. The wind pushed
leaves around in the yard to swirl and rattle like they do. I parked the truck and walked around the house, and it took me a while to realize that someone had broken in.

It took me a while because they were good. They were awfully damn good. There was a measured calmness and professionalism about the thing that I found both terrifying and impressive. They hadn't kicked down the door or smashed a window. They hadn't sawed a creep-shaped hole in the outer wall and gone in that way. The southward-facing kitchen window had always had a loose lock, and someone had discovered it and prized it open and gone in, leaving behind just the barest hints of chipped windowpane. I didn't follow suit. I went back around front and unlocked the door with my key and went inside to look around. Everything was perfectly still, and nothing seemed the least out of place, and let me tell you, that was disconcerting as hell.

After a while, I went upstairs and found the cats. Usually we were at odds, but for a change they seemed happy to see me, so I pet them and put down food and water before realizing that I wouldn't be able to leave them to their own devices like that, even for a few hours at a time, as I'd been planning. I felt ashamed of myself and my species, and not for the last time, either. I called a vet's office in Marion that also did boarding, then put the cats in their boxes and drove them into town, where I dropped them off and generally began to feel better about my human virtues. Funny how little it takes.

On my way back through, I had an idea. I returned to the Vale and went inside and upstairs to Anci's room. I brought down her old computer and put it on a table in the living room, facing the front of the house. Jeep had showed me a
program once that you could download to turn your computer into a surveillance camera—a kind of motion-activated thing—and I used it now to do just that. I opened the lid and switched on the little camera and set it to record. I put a big vase on one side of the computer and a framed photograph on the other side, hoping to camouflage it somewhat. It wasn't a great job, to say the least, but maybe it would do.

After that, I dialed Jeep Mabry's number and told his voicemail about the break-in. Then I went back to where all my troubles had started.

W
hen I rolled into Coulterville, the Knight Hawk's tipple was catching the sunlight and burning like a beacon. The mine's flags were out and whipping around noisily in the air, and the afternoon shift-horn blasted over the little town and echoed around and up the wooded slopes and into space. I felt a little like a knight of old, ready to storm some mysterious citadel. I decided I was hungry.

I stopped for a bite of lunch at the town's only cafeteria. As I was walking in, an old man with bright blond hair was coming out. He was a sight, too—dressed fancy, as though for a funeral he was happy to attend, with a wide-brimmed fedora on his head. A side of beef in an orange ball cap sneered at me as he and the old man made their way toward one of those great old Town Cars that ought to have their own zip codes. The boy opened the back door, and the old man smiled thinly at me and swiped a finger across the tip of his nose twice. He climbed inside, and after a moment they drove away. I didn't know what in the hell that was all about, so I went in for my chili.

Inside was crowded, and the service was slow—more
chatty than slow, really—but the chili was pretty good, and I ate a big bowl with crackers and generous splashes of hot sauce and washed it down with coffee and rumor. Luster wasn't even in the ground yet, but word was already swirling about the impending sale of the mine. Most of it was idle talk, but when I heard Roy Galligan mentioned as the most likely buyer, I did sit up and take note. Then some dipshit said he'd heard a helicopter full of Chinese businessmen had landed at the mine, intent on inspecting a prospective investment, and I knew we'd arrived at the end of useful information.

“Quite a day in here,” the old man at the cash register said. I recognized him as a fire boss I'd worked with years ago without ever really getting to know. “Sorry about your wait.”

“It's nothing,” I said.

“Bit of a fuss, what with old man Galligan stopping in.”

“That was him? The old coot with the blond hair?”

“That was him,” he said. “Kinda think he's sniffing around that mine over yonder, given the current circumstances. You up to that Knight Hawk mine, aren't you?”

I said, “I'm up to that Knight Hawk.”

“Few years now, too, I recall.”

“Four this winter,” I said.

He nodded. “I was there twenty-five, myself. You might not remember me. They called me Sappy back then.”

“Of course I remember you, Sappy,” I said. “Slim.”

We shook hands.

“I remember.”

“We lie like helium,” I said, and he laughed.

“We really do,” he said. “I do remember you some now,
though. Besides just your face, I mean. I remember some of the guys making a fuss about your daddy.”

“Sure.”

“I guess you heard about Luster.”

“I heard about it.”

He nodded. He had a big burn scar on the left side of his face. Not a pretty sight. The skin was pink and raw and had that pearlescent shine that burned flesh gets. His hair was cropped short—on the burned side, it looked a little like scorched grass—and his left eye was rheumy and a slightly different shade of blue than the other. His left ear was a knot of flesh, like puckered lips, and I noticed him turning his right toward conversation to make up for whatever hearing he'd lost.

“It's all anyone's talking about in here.”

“I bet.”

“I'll be honest, I ain't shed much tears over it. I guess you noticed my face.”

“I barely noticed,” I said.

“Oh, people always feel a need to lie about it, but I don't take offense,” he said. “Not anymore, anyway. Folks see something like that, they look. You can't hardly blame them.”

I didn't know what to say, so I said, “That's a good attitude to have about it.”

He shrugged. “It wasn't always like that. Few years back, when it happened, I was mad as hell. Boy, was I mad. Took me a couple years to get over it, too. Hard years. Lost my wife. Started drinking more than was wise. Fell out with my kids. Like that.”

“What happened?” I asked, because I could tell he wanted me to.

“Fire on the line. Coal fire. Somehow, we had combustion on the conveyor right off the longwall pan. So the crew called me and my team in, and we evacuated the area and switched on the fire suppressors, and guess what happened.”

“I'm thinking nothing.”

“Damn things were bust. Or never worked in the first place. Never found out. New units, too. Luster had taken out the old ones and put in these things. Gave the contract to a personal friend. The old ones worked fine. Those new things were just for show, I guess. You could have picked me off the floor. You ever been in a fire down there?”

“I never have.”

He said, “Well, don't. The walls close in and the smoke fills everything so fast you don't have time to shit your pants or pray. Coal smoke, too, so this is the real deal. It's like the world just goes away. Everybody started screaming and running this way and that. I gathered the remainder of my team, and we tried to do it old school, with hoses. They kept them in a metal cabinet right there off the face. They were new, too, replaced at the same time as the suppressors and by the same outfit, and we grabbed those, and guess what happened then.”

“I can't even begin to.”

“Couplings didn't match. They had the one spigot and the one hose, and they didn't fit. We kept trying to screw them together—probably a little longer than good sense dictated, but under those conditions you don't really trust what you're seeing. Time we figured out what was going on, the fire was fully out of control, and I'd lost three men and got this new face. When it was all over, they dumped the whole thing on me. I tried to convince them what had happened, but someone had to take the fall, and in the end
they went after the guy with the most empty space in his pockets. Luster went right along with it, too. For a while, I crossed the road to work at a Galligan outfit, but his shop made Luster's look almost civilized when it came to safety. So I lost my job. Both jobs. I lost my family. I had my dark night and found the Lord, and the Lord told me I liked the chili business better than the coal mine business anyway, and here I am today. Listen, Slim, I try to be a good man and a better Christian. I pray every day and ask for guidance, and I try to forgive my enemies and even love them a little, like the Book tells us to, but I confess that when I heard what happened to Matthew J. Luster my dick got a little hard.”

H
alf an hour later, I arrived at the Knight Hawk. It was still there, and the lot was full of the day shift. No
For Sale
signs or Chinese investors anywhere in sight. No helicopters. You could have knocked me over with a blown kiss. I crossed the colliery and checked in at the main office. Billy Bear was back from his daughter's Rock Island wedding, and he heard my voice and rumbled out to see me.

“Hey, Slim. I guess you heard.”

“Even the chili guy up the road knows about it.”

“Sappy?” he said. He waved a hand at me. “Sappy hears everything. Even with just the one ear. Word is, you're mixed up in it somehow, and I tell you what, I can't have it. Consider yourself on leave until further notice.”

“That so?”

“As in, not currently an employee at this coal mine.”

“Not an employee?”

“Not until further notice. Least until I'm satisfied no trouble's going to follow you down in that hole.”