Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) (2 page)

So far, so good, but somewhere along the line some evil genius discovered that anhydrous ammonia could also be used to produce methamphetamine. And since mining operations bought the stuff in bulk, there was always plenty of it around. We need it to eliminate poison; meth dealers want it to make poison. It's a match made in hell.

A while back, after local gangs destroyed three new chain-link fences to get at the Knight Hawk's storage tanks, the mine bosses hired armed guards to patrol the area. As yet no one had been shot, but that was only a matter of hours, probably.

“I tell you,” Peggy said, interrupting my happy thoughts with a glance in Anci's direction. “That little one's more like an adult every day. It's impressive.”

“I call it unnerving.”

“That too. She was talking earlier about her career. That's the word she used, too. ‘Career.' Said she might want to be a lawyer.”

“Oh, hell's bells.”

Peggy put her hand on my shoulder. “Environmental law, at least.”

“Small consolation.”

“I think we're at the point where small consolations are all we can hope for, Slim. Still, she's something else.”

“She is,” I said, “but she's had to grow up fast. Too fast, probably. And she's had a lot put on her, and a lot of questions I can't answer.”

“It's a tough age,” Peggy said. She frowned a little at her thoughts. “And like to get tougher. I have some vague memories of those years, and let me tell you, it can be a hard time for a young woman who wants to turn herself into something.”

“I do what I can.”

“Darlin', no offense, but that's a little like turning a bull loose in the hatchery.”

“So you've settled on honesty for tonight.”

“I try to be honest every night, Slim. Or at least good.”

“Or very bad.”

“Depends on the night, sugar,” she said. She lost herself again in her thoughts, then looked back up at me. “I don't suppose I can get you to be serious for a moment?”

“Well, since you went out of your way to put some icing on it.”

“I mean it. I got something to tell you.”

“Okay, I'll be serious, too. Try to, anyway. What's the story?”

Before she could tell me, though, the door opened and Anci reappeared.

She said, “My memory is we had a date.”

“Reality TV and YouTube videos,” I explained to Peggy.

“Looks like it's time to get back inside,” she said, collecting the cats who'd trailed outside after Anci and leaving it lie.

I
'll be honest, leaving it lie wasn't really my thing. Never has been. When I die, they'll probably chisel it on my headstone:
Slim: Wouldn't Leave It Lie
.

Long time ago, I'd married a hippie woman for love. And love her I did, and she loved me. Or so I believed. For a long time it was good, and I thought we'd beat the weary world and its cynical ways. I worked my kip at the Knight Hawk or wherever would have me. She practiced Reiki or sold magical stones or whatever was hitting the new age markets that year. In the end, she gave me both good and bad. The good was Anci. The bad was heartache. We'd been going along okay as a family until, one morning, just like that, she announced that she'd dissolved our marriage in a dream. She was done and ready to move on. More to the point, she'd
taken up with another guy, one who spoke her language or understood more fully the language of runes or the whispers of the earth or whatever it was. At first, I figured he was some kind of Svengali, maybe, that he'd put her under some kind of a spell, but you always want to let the ones you love off the hook or create an excuse for their badness. In the end, I had to face it: she was gone, and gone of her own will. She packed up our only car, and she and her new fella struck for the golden West and whatever spiritual quest awaited them.

Situation like that, you want to spend some time—five or six years, maybe—staring at a wall and hoping an airplane lands on your bed. But when you've got a kid, you can't do that. All of a sudden, there's slack to pick up. Miles of slack. You've got to do all the cooking and cleaning and helping with homework. You've got to hold her hand and tell her everything's going to be all right, that her mother didn't leave because of her, and you have to keep telling her until she believes it. You wish there was someone around to tell you the same things, but there almost never is. I guess that's just the way of things.

O
rders received, we went inside with Anci. The YouTubes weren't bad, but the reality shows were a terror. Some of them were basically singing and dancing contests, and those were okay, I guess, but the worst seemed to pit people of bad character against one another for no other reason than to raise serious doubts about the value of the human race. I hate to be like that—I hated when my parents yelled at me about the Rolling Stones—but some things just get to you. Every one of these shows was the same: Young folks spinning webs of deceit and treachery that Dante himself would
pass over as unrealistically mean-spirited. Anci asked me if I liked them and—it being her birthday—I said I did, but secretly I wanted to find the responsible parties and show them images of earthly suffering until they devoted their lives to something less heinous.

After basically a million years of these terrible things, Anci stood up and yawned and stretched and said, “I think I'm calling that a birthday.”

“You're giving out already?” I said. “I thought we'd be watching until midnight at least.”

“I've decided to give you a break,” she said. “I know that look you get.”

“What look?”

“The look you're wearing right now. One like you want to kick a hole in the baby Moses.”

“I thought I was hiding it better than that.”

“Well, you're not,” she said. “Besides, my guess is you'll want to get on to complaining about your taxes or how bad your back aches or whatever it is old folks talk about when the young people aren't around.”

“I have this whole thing planned about my arthritis,” I said. “There are pictures and everything.”

She looked at Peggy.

“You're good to put up with him.”

“Don't I know it.”

“I hate it when you two team up,” I said. “I can barely keep up with one of you. A team-up just isn't fair.”

“You mean like state fair?”

“Go to bed.”

She hefted her book—it was as big as a cinder block—and thanked us for her presents and cake and hugged Peggy
around the neck one last time and went up to her room, singing.

When we were alone, we sat there quietly a moment or two with our thoughts. I switched off the TV, and the terrible people went away. At last, I said to Peggy, “Well, that was a party now.”

“It was. Shame they only come once a year.”

“Strongly agree. I'll tell you, I got the post-party blues.”

“Me, too.”

“Do you want to hear my presentation on arthritis now?”

“No. No, I do not.”

“Well, what do you want to do then?” I asked.

“Darling, I want to fuck.”

“Bless you.”

And that's what we did. It was nice, playful and playfully rough and fun. Mostly fun. Afterward, we lay in bed, laughing and licking our wounds and feeling content. Peggy had some grass. I rolled a joint, and we shared it back and forth.

I said, “Well, that wasn't half bad.”

“Honey, I'm only
getting
old.” She hit me gently with her pillow. “I figure I got another fifteen years or so of screwing the gray out of your beard.”

“Possibly I should get a dye job, give you a run for your money. What do you think?”

“I think middle-aged men who color their hair look like serial killers, TV ministers, or porno producers, but whatever keeps you motivated, love.”

“It's a deal then,” I said. “Speaking of which . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Have you thought any more about my offer?”

“About moving in here with the two of you?”

“No, about my come-to-Jesus pitch. Of course about moving in here.”

“I'm thinking about it, Slim. I really am.”

“Been a while now.”

“I'm a slow thinker.”

“You hate your place in Zeigler.”

“Only because it's drafty, creaky, and possibly haunted. It has its good points, though. One thing, the ghosts appear to have frightened off the snakes.”

“And Anci would love it.”

“I know,” she said, turning serious.

“I wouldn't dislike it so much my own self. We could make a nice life together, maybe.”

“More than nice, even.”

“That's what I think. How long have we been seeing each other?”

“A year and a half, two weeks ago Thursday,” she said. “Not that I'm counting.”

“Wednesday, actually. Not that I'm counting,” I said. “I think by the time my parents had known one another that long, they had three kids and my daddy had been to war and back.”

“Your math might be just a little off, love, to say nothing of your biology. Anyway, in case you haven't noticed, times have changed a little since the olden days.”

“Olden days? I'm talking about the
sixties
.”

“Uh-huh. Slim, 1961 was a half century or so ago, believe it or not. Meantime, I've been married. I've been married and a half. Married a damn meth dealer.”

“I know.”

“And I've made other mistakes.”

“That's just another way of saying you're an adult.”

“True enough. And this adult needs more time. To think things through. To be sure about us.”

“And me.”

“And you,” she agreed. “And where we're headed.”

“Fair enough.”

She kissed me on the lips.

“Good. You're a good man, Slim. I appreciate your patience.”

“I like to think it's more than just something like patience.”

“I like to think so, too. Do me a favor? Ask me again soon.”

“Deal,” I said. “And speaking of asking, you had something to ask
me
earlier.”

“I did?”

“Or something to tell me.”

She was quiet a moment then said, “Ah, that. Let's save that for another time, okay? It's a rule. I don't do serious conversations in the buff, and I'm sure as hell not about to start tonight.”

“Darling, I hate to tell you, I think you've broken your rule. I think we both have.”

“Broke it and danced on the pieces, sug, but I tell you what, I'm done.”

“Well, what do you do in the buff, then?” I asked. I reached for the roach cradled in the V of a punch-metal ashtray.

“Let me show you.”

She showed me. Following another earthquake, we again lay in the dark. The house was still with that nighttime
country quiet. Peggy breathed softly beside me, snoring a little, her body tingling with the warmth of sleep. The cool autumn air sighed against the windowpanes. I lay there awake and wondering how I could have gotten old enough to have a twelve-year-old. It seemed impossible, but I guess the passage of time always does. Then I lay there hoping that Peggy would eventually take me up on my offer, and I got mad at myself for hoping things. I hoped I really was a good man, like Peggy had said. I wished I could right the mistakes of the past or at least straighten them out some so that it all made sense, but you could never do that. It was what it was and always would be, just like I was always going to be a coal miner whose wife had run away, and that's all there was to it. Things were what they were, and I tried to be resolved about it, but trying only made me more blue. I'm not usually a depressive sort, but the nighttime brings it out in you sometimes. You know how it is. After what felt like a long time, I grew drowsy with my thoughts.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I rolled over and glanced at my phone to check the hour. Whoever this Matthew Luster was, he'd called five more times.

A
report on the Mays killing led off the local radio news that morning, but there didn't seem to be any new information. No suspects were named and no arrests had been made. The section of the mine where they'd found Mays's body was still closed and like to be for some time. There was the usual business from the cops about it being an ongoing investigation, then someone from the Knight Hawk issued the kind of statement that's carefully constructed to convey no meaning whatsoever, and that was the end of it.

I got out of bed quietly so as not to wake Peggy. I slipped into a robe and came downstairs, where I found Anci staring mournfully at the remains of the ice cream cake. Somehow in all the fun the night before we'd neglected to put it away and the cats had been at it. There were sticky white paw prints everywhere. I half expected to see them on the ceiling.

Anci said, “Well, that's kind of a kick in the teeth. That was going to be my breakfast.”

“I was hoping you'd try something a little more healthy.”

“French toast with lots of syrup?”

“Little powdered sugar makes it nice, too.”

“Sure does.”

“Right on.”

We dapped and blew it up.

I got started on the toast. Anci turned on some music—“Ready for the Time to Get Better” by Crystal Gayle, I think it was—and we sang along together with that. After a
while, Peggy heard us carrying on and came staggering in. She was a beautiful woman, but morning was not her time. She looked like she'd slept through a cyclone. Her hair was a tangled mess and she'd put on a pajamas shirt but missed a buttonhole, and the whole thing was cockeyed. She was wearing one sock. The other had gone AWOL.

I said, “The reports of your demise . . .”

“Fewer jokes,” she said, “more coffee.”

While Anci ate and Peggy mainlined caffeine, I excused myself and had a quick workout: pushups and some stomach crunches. I worked the heavy bag for a while and then tied on my sneakers and went for a run up to Shake-a-Rag and back. It was a gray morning. The clouds pushed in and blanketed the sky, and though the air was touched cool, by the time I got back to the house I was a sweaty mess. Meantime, Peggy and Anci had showered and dressed and were heading out to school, Anci for learning and Peggy for teaching.

“Stay out of trouble today, Slim,” Peggy said.

“I always do,” I said.

“That'll be the day,” Anci said.

I kissed them both and saw them off. I went back inside and sipped another cup of coffee. The house was always too quiet when they were gone, and I soon found myself singing along to some more old-school country songs, Willie and Emmylou and Dolly. “Gulf Coast Highway” came on with its tale of patient love and I started getting teary. I didn't know what was wrong with me lately. Probably I was getting sentimental in my old age. I switched off the radio and checked my cell for more calls and found none. I contemplated calling this Luster back to find out what he was on about, but I was already running late, so I mopped up some of the ice cream mess I'd missed, then hopped
on the bike and cruised up IL-13 north and west to Coulterville. Along the way, it started to rain.

I arrived at the Hawk just as it really started turning loose. I flashed my ID, rode through the gates, and headed up to the shaft to wait for the elevator. Some of the men in line wanted to talk about the body in the gob pile, but coal miners basically have the attention span of small children and pretty soon they were on to other things, including the rack on the new shift nurse. The gist of it was that she put them in a romantic mood. Mercifully, the elevator soon arrived and took us below.

My section was at the far end of the active work area, north and east a ways and beneath the edge of the lake. I climbed off the man-trip—the vehicle that transports miners to the face, I mean—and then walked a half mile or so to where a pile of slide-back roughly the size of Angkor Wat was waiting. Just looking at it made my back ache. I was searching around for my shovel when my least favorite shift boss came over. He had a head like a bearded ham and an ass it would take two ordinary men to pull. Everybody called him Big Sexy. He always looked at me like something he wanted to wipe up with a hanky.

He said, “Hold up on that boodle there, Slim. You're wanted up top.”

“Up top? You're shitting me. I just got down here.”

“I know. Saw you come in.”

“Goddamn it, Big Sexy, why didn't you save me the trip?”

He shrugged. “'Cause I don't like you.”

If my shovel had been there, I would have shoved it up his giant ass. It wasn't, so I'd have to get my vengeance barehanded, and I was about to when another of the bosses took my arm and led me away.

“C'mon, Slim,” he said quietly. “Boss is waiting.”

So I went out again, back on the man-trip, and to the cage, and up into daytime. It was raining harder now, cold slashes of rain, and from somewhere west came the bark of thunder. I walked across the tipple to the fiberglass shed they called the main office, and went inside to the reception desk.

A blond woman with a hair bun the size of a small dog looked up at me.

“Help you there, Slam?”

“It's Slim.”

“Oh.” She made a face. “Why'd I think Slam then?”

“I don't know.”

She thought about it a moment. I just stood there, letting her think. The phone didn't ring. The computer on the desk didn't catch fire. No one threw a folding chair through the office window.

“I think maybe there was a Slam who worked one of them Asheville mines. You know the ones.”

“I guess I do.”

“You don't have to worry about your name being close to his, though,” she went on. My mind briefly entertained the idea of hitting her with her keyboard. “He's dead.”

“Billy Bear sent for me,” I put in.

She thought about a dead guy named Slam for another moment or two, frowning, then came back to the present and shook her head.

“He didn't.”

“I was told he did.”

“Well, if he did, he didn't do it from here. He's up to Rock Island this week. Got a daughter getting hitched.”

“That's a hell of a thing.”

She blinked at me.

“The wedding or Billy Bear not being here?”

“The second one,” I said. “I don't know about a wedding.”

She shrugged and said, “I've met him. She could do worse. Your thing, though? Maybe someone's pulling your chain.”

“I'm starting to think so. Fact, I'm starting to think this whole day is a big joke on me. What's the penalty these days for running your shift captain through the crusher house?”

“I don't know, but they'll probably dock you both.”

I thanked her and went out with murder in my heart. He was coming in at the same time, and we nearly collided. He was short—five foot five or thereabouts—with a head like an artillery shell and a pile of white hair. He was maybe seventy and with the hair looked a little like a mad scientist from one of the old movies. He was wearing a light brown suit and a display handkerchief and, somewhat preciously, rough work boots.

“You're Slim?” he said.

That's me. I'm Slim.

The man nodded and scowled and reached out to take my hand. His clasp was firm and felt like money in the bank.

I was right on that count, at least. “I'm the one sent for you, son,” he said. “My name's Matthew Luster. And this is my coal mine.”

L
ike most folks with his kind of money and power, Luster looked the part. His suit was neatly tailored and his red display handkerchief was fine like raw silk. His wristwatch was one of those fancy Omega numbers that does everything but
man the phones and spank the babies. Even his mad-science hairstyle looked better than my ten-dollar Walmart trim.

We went back inside and into Billy Bear's office. There was a desk with Billy Bear's name on it and some framed pictures of kids playing ball and such. The little girl in some of them was the one who'd grown up to get married, I guess. A good-looking young man in a dark suit hurried to join us. Luster sat in the big leather chair behind the desk. The young man leaned casually against it. They owned the place and acted like they did. There wasn't a chair for me so I just stood there like a dope, dripping from the rain and wondering why I'd been summoned to an audience with the owner.

Luster said, “I was starting to worry something had happened to you, boy. You always ignore your phone calls?”

“Sorry. I didn't recognize your name on my cell. I don't even know how you managed to
get
your name on my cell. Usually it's just a number, unless I know you.”

“Oh, that. You can pay extra for that,” he said. “It's a service.”

“Well, service or no, I didn't recognize your name out of context. Thought you might be a salesman.”

Luster sniffed. “
Context
? What the hell kind of a thing is that? Let me ask you, you have some college, Slim?”

“I've driven past a couple,” I said. “You could have left a voicemail, you know? That's a service, too.”

“Okay. Fair enough. But this ain't the kind of thing you leave phone messages lying around about.” He waved a hand. He wanted to get down to it. “Let's turkey shoot. What job you working down there these days?”

I told him, and he sucked it around for a moment. He looked at the young guy and nodded, and the young guy slid off the desk and out of the room without a word.

“You're off that as of now,” Luster said. “You want your bolter back, you can have that. You want to be shift captain or dust boss, or you want to get up here in the daylight for a while, maybe, you can have that, too. Jonathan is off taking care of it for you now.”

“He got all that from you with just a look?”

“We been together since he was a pup. We got to where words aren't always needed.” He crawled forward some on the top of the desk. Words were needed between us, I guess. “Listen, Slim, I do this for you because I want you to
see
what I can do for you.”

“Okay.”

“I can do more,” he said. “Don't think I can't. I'm what you call a person of means.”

“I'd say that's putting it mildly. I'm guessing you own most of the county. Underside of it, anyway, which is just as well, because that's where the money is.”

Luster shrugged. His lips pressed together and for an instant his eyes showed memory and a spark of something like regret. He said, “One time, maybe. Not so much these days. Business ain't what it used to be. I've sold out some to Roy Galligan, too. You know Roy Galligan?”

“We've never been introduced.”

“Know of him, I mean. Anyway, I've sold out some to him. Couple of them smaller outfits, and that surface mine over there to Holly. Headaches for cash. Still, what I've got left pays the bills.”

“I bet,” I said. “Maybe a little left over. Only question is what any of it has to do with me.”

“You know a guy name of Sam Dooley?”

“Dooley-Bug? Yeah, him I know,” I said.

“You worked with him once.”

“More than once. Dooley-Bug's been in the mines a long time.”

“True that. So long he owes Underground Jesus a nickel. But what I mean is, last year you found his kid for him.”

I hesitated. This was suddenly getting into some pretty confidential territory. I wondered how Luster knew about it. Surely not from Dooley, who was a close-lipped sort, but others were involved, too, not least Dooley's daughter. Some of them weren't so close-lipped. Not least Dooley's daughter. Others, too, probably.

I decided to play noncommittal. “Something like that might have happened, one time or another.”

Luster waved his hand.

“Don't lawyer me, boy. Word is, the kid started running with a pretty dubious crowd. Something to do with this meth shit we got running wild these days. Maybe the kid was just using or maybe she was selling, too. Whichever it was, she was being used by her gang. Bag whoring, they call it. Pussy for drugs. You know anything about that?”

“Nope.”

“Nasty business. Anyway, story is that Dooley went to retrieve her. I hear he didn't want her back so much. The kid had been trouble for a long time, a bad seed. But his wife was brokenhearted over the whole deal and talked him into it. So off he goes to confront these black-toothed bastards, and for his trouble he gets the holy dog shit beat out of him. Word then has it that he set you loose on them, and you tore through 'em like a tornado through a trailer park. They say you left a lot of hats on the ground.”

“I can't say.”

“Hell, Slim, I don't expect you to tell,” he said, and smiled and winked at me because we were men sharing things. “Secrets are secrets. It's a rare man these days who understands that and can keep his hole shut. I just wanted you to know that I know. They say you've got a bloodhound's nose, and you're either too brave or too stupid to be afraid.”

“Thanks.”

He didn't care for that. He had a wealthy man's touchiness, and he showed it to me.

“I just mean you got tangled up in a rough situation with bad actors and came out of it on top. Jesus, Slim, sit down.”

His words were barely audible over the sound of rain tapping the window glass, but as soon as he said it, Jonathan came back in through the door pushing a roller chair. It was like a magic act. I sat down.

Luster pressed on. “And I hear you helped out a few more fellas here at the mine. Finding folks for them, I mean. Bringing 'em home. They say you have a knack for that kind of thing. Bloodhounding. That true?”

I didn't like saying so, at least not until I had better idea of where all this was headed. Facts were facts, though, and the fact was that after the aforementioned business with Dooley I'd been approached by a handful of folks eager to locate this missing person or that. Sometimes I found them and brought them home—runaway kids, mostly—and sometimes I found them and left them alone, if leaving them alone felt like the right thing to do. But I always found them.