Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) (23 page)

“All this for some money,” I said. “I hope it was worth it.”

For once, Temple spoke up with more than complaints. “You're thinking too small, hayseed. Sure, there was money, but that was only for starters. We also wanted the lease for the mine. And we would have gotten it, too. The King Coal's on its last legs, but the land is still worth a fortune. It was hell watching my father sell out our legacy to that vain idiot Galligan, watching him diminish himself like that. He was a great man once, and seeing him grovel in front of Galligan and selling off our mines just to survive was like watching him die before his time. I know to you this was simple blackmail, Slim, but it was supposed to be justice. A restoration. If my father hadn't butted his nose in, he'd have lived to see that. He might even have appreciated it.”

“Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from hell.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Means anything to you, though, I know what it's like to have a larger-than-life father, too.”

“God, shut up.”

I turned back to Beckett. “So how much longer, do you figure?”

“Figure? Figure what?”

Behind me, Temple said, “Guy, do it.”

Guy looked down the long barrel of the rifle, but didn't fire. I pushed a thumb over my shoulder at Temple.

I said, “Pretty clear she's the brains behind all of this. She's the
one who knew Galligan well enough to know his vulnerabilities. She's the one who hated Mays, and I'm going to guess she's the one who convinced you that killing him was the way to go. Even getting her own father murdered didn't put an end to her plan.”

“So?”

“So how much longer do you figure she'll keep you around?”

“Guy, for Christ's sake, just shoot him.”

“Bodies are heavy lifting,” I said. “In all kinds of ways. But pretty soon there won't be any more bodies. Just electronic fund transfers, and those don't weigh anything at all.”

“Guy, goddamn it . . .”

I said, “And then who'll look after your kid?”

It was a desperate play, maybe, the last card in my sleeve, but I needed every second I could get, and it worked. Beckett sucked a breath and blanched, and Temple looked like she'd been kicked in the tits.

“Guy?”

“It's nothing,” he said. “Don't listen.”

“Oh, my God,” she hissed, “Oh, my God, you lying piece of trash.”

“I said it's nothing.”

“It's not nothing. It's eight years old and living with his momma in Johnston City.” I turned to Beckett. “What about him, man?”

“Goddamn you . . .”

“Mary-Kay Connor, man.” I shook my head. “Love really is blind. Or stupid.”

“
Guy!
” Behind me, I could feel her patience snap like lightning. She'd put up with his messes for a lifetime, and then all at once she'd had enough. But she struggled with
her piece, and getting into a firing stance seemed to take three seconds. She'd let Beckett and the help do her killing for a reason. I don't know who she was aiming at, me or Beckett. Maybe both of us. I never found out.

I prayed it'd be then. I prayed they'd take her with the scoped M77, so it was a prayer to somewhere south of heaven, but it was answered and just then they tried. They tried, but the shot whispered out of the dark and went wide like a metal-jacketed bumblebee drunk on marijuana honey. The cylinder of martinis exploded in a silver shower, and the curved glass shards destroyed most of the left side of Temple's lovely face as she collapsed against the table and fired off three quick rounds with her lightweight Ruger.

The first and second shots went nowhere. But they must have been hollow-point rounds, because the third hit Beckett just below the elbow of his left arm and nearly severed it. There was a cloud of blood, and he dropped his rifle and hit his knees and made a sound I'll carry to my grave. Temple dropped her piece, too, and rushed to his aid, and I grabbed Anci and hugged her to my chest, and it was then that the back gate opened and the old men came through, out of the night.

These were the men I'd spoken about with Mary-Kay Connor. They were creatures of a different world and a different time, and they'd seen things and done things that most of us couldn't even begin to imagine. They'd lived through strikes and wildcats and attempted assassinations and beatings and murders, all of it over a few more dollars a month and the pride of whoever lost the fight. Even at nearly eighty years old, they were a terrifying sight. My father led the way, carrying the M77.

“You're late,” I said. “Almost too late. I could have used your help a while back.”

He shrugged and moved closer to stroke Anci's hair and without looking at me said, “We got turned around in the woods back there. We don't see so good in the dark these days.” He looked at Temple and Beckett, who stared back at him in fear. He looked at them with a look that wasn't even disgust, because disgust was something you reserved for people who mattered. Beckett whimpered and Temple quaked like a frightened child. I almost brought myself to pity them. “These are the people who threatened my granddaughter?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded and leaned in and kissed Anci's head, but she didn't stir beyond the soft rise and fall of her breath.

He said, “Okay. Go on now. Get her out of here.”

“I should be here. I'll drop her and come back.”

He said, “Don't you dare.”

I looked at him a long moment, and finally he looked at me, but nothing passed between us that might have told anything of our story.

I got out of there. I carried my daughter up the dark road. Cheezie was waiting in the car, and he smiled sadly at me when I opened the rear passenger door and the light came on. I put Anci in the back seat and buckled her in, then I closed the door and the light snapped off and at the same time there were two shots from up the road.

I got in behind the wheel and turned on the engine.

Cheezie said, “It's a hard old world for some folks.”

I didn't say anything. I drove us away from that nightmare.

I
'd like to say it all worked out in the end, that the resolution of the case snapped back the pieces of an orderly life, but that wasn't the way things shook out. The only good thing was that Anci remembered almost nothing of her ordeal. Our therapist said that she'd probably have bad dreams, though, that at least some of the nightmare might one day worm its way through to her waking consciousness. I hoped he was wrong.

It was a slow and painful process, but Jeep Mabry eventually recovered from his wounds. Dr. Cooper said it was a kind of miracle. Jeep was literally too mean to die: that was the medical explanation. As soon as I had Anci stowed away, I spent as much time at his bedside as he'd allow, which wasn't much.

As for old man Galligan, I never found out whether he planned to keep his promise. Two weeks after Christmas, the camouflaged wet seal between the King Coal and Grendel mines gave way all by its lonesome, and the state EPA lumbered into action at last. With assistance from the local university, a team of investigators was dispatched into the old slope mine, and when they stumbled upon the bloated and acid-eaten remains in the Grendel coal mine, all holy hell broke loose at last.

Or so it seemed. Whatever else might be done to him, Galligan was right: he'd never see the inside of a prison cell. Guys like him never did. They probably wouldn't even take
much of his precious money. In a similar case out in West Virginia, a mine owner was fined exactly one dollar for loosing untold AMD contamination into the Cheat River. Funny how bullshit's the same, wherever you go.

By March, the ugliness had moved into court, where the inevitable squabbling started over who was supposed to clean up old Roy's dirty ocean. They were still bickering about it when, just before the spring hatch, the Grendel's broken ribs gave way at last, and untold millions of gallons of contaminated mine water sluiced downhill into Crab Orchard and its three constituent lakes. Last I heard, the Parks Service was still counting the dead fish.

Not long after that, the Knight Hawk passed into receivership. With Temple gone, Jonathan inherited the works, but he wanted no part of it and put it up for sale. When no buyers stepped forward—not even Chinese ones—the banks eventually did. The entire workforce got put out on its ass, and they all lost their pensions. Me included. I guess nobody ever got around to setting it aside, Luster because he got murdered first and Temple because she never really intended to in the first place. It was rotten luck, all right, but I came out of it a lot better than a lot of them had. At least I was alive.

After I got word to Jump Down about Galligan, he dropped off my radar. I don't guess there was any question what career he'd moved on to, and I reckoned he'd do just fine for himself. These days, drug dealers were some of the only folk with any real kind of job security.

Me? Well, I had to find something to do to make ends meet. I looked around a bit, but it was hard going, and there were no other mine jobs to be had. It'd gotten so bad I was contemplating a Walmart greeter's job when Anci struck
upon the idea of putting up the sign. A couple of weeks later she talked me into it. It said
Slim: Redneck Investigations
, which she thought was a hoot. I guess I kinda did, too, because every time I saw it I smiled.

“We've never run a business before,” she said. “Might need some help.”

“Maybe I'll call Susan. See what she's up to these days.”

“Then start taking some cases,” Anci said. “Small at first, maybe, and nothing too dangerous.”

“Of course not. We'll only solve pleasant mysteries. Assuming anyone hires us at all.”

“Right. Also, no more fights or guns.”

“I figure you only get one like that anyway. Everything else will probably be pretty boring.”

Anci said, “Probably.”

I saw Sheriff Wince from time to time on the television, but didn't hear from him personally. One afternoon, though, Willard dropped by to deliver some welcome news: the DA had decided not to pursue charges against Jeep and me.

“Well, that's a relief,” I said.

“Thought you'd like that,” he said. He shook his head. “Damnedest thing. A lot of dead bodies around this business, and we still don't really know what it was all about.”

“Some kind of meth war, probably.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “But that don't really explain the disappearance of Luster's daughter. It's like the entire family just dried up and blew away. One of the networks is doing a special about it. You know, one of those programs about the unsolved cases.”

“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe they'll get to the bottom of it.”

He said, “That hurts.”

I didn't see or hear from my old man again. He went back to his life, and I went back to mine, just like we'd been doing since I was a kid. That was neither a surprise nor especially disappointing.

T
hings with Peggy and I ran kinda rough for a while, like being around each other brought up too many bad memories. She stayed by Anci's side almost every day until she was convinced of her full recovery, but she and I didn't have much to do with each other, and then she was gone. I heard a rumor that she'd gone north to visit family, a sister of hers maybe, but I left it at that. For a while there, I thought that would be the end for us. After a couple of months, though, I found myself on the phone with her one night, and then the next and the next. She's a good woman, and unlike almost everyone else in this story, at least she was trying to do the right thing. We still haven't moved in together, though. Maybe one day.

T
ime passed, another year, and Anci turned thirteen at last, more beautiful than ever, and ever more the grownup I was proud to see her becoming. Peggy came by. And Jeep and Opal. Even old Lilac. We sang and ate cake and ice cream and gave presents. When they were gone, Anci and I found ourselves alone on the porch beneath the night sky.

I said, “Did you get everything you wanted for your birthday?”

“I guess so. Almost, anyway.”

“Oh, what was missing?”

“Motorcycle.”

“Come again?”

“Wanted one, didn't get one.”

“Reason might be, this is the first I'm hearing of it. Besides, I'm not sure that's a very good idea.”

“You got one.”

“I'm a grown person, and when you're a grown person you get to have the things you want.”

“That true?”

“No.”

She thought about that for a moment, and then she said, “Hold on. I have an idea.”

She disappeared into the house and came back a moment later holding a handful of white envelopes.

“One more present, then,” she said.

“I'm almost afraid to ask.”

“I got some letters.”

“I see that.”

“From mom.”

“Okay.”

She looked at me. “You knew?”

“Maybe.”

“You old fox,” she said. “And here I thought I was a snoop. Did you read them?”

I said, “Nope. They're not mine to read.”

She looked at me until she was satisfied I was telling the truth. Then she nodded and said, “Truth is, I haven't, either. I opened some, but I never could read them. Guess maybe I'm scared.”

“I guess maybe I'm a little scared, too.”

“You? Of what?”

I said, “I don't know. The future, probably. How stuff
changes. Everything that can happen. It can be a little frightening sometimes.”

“And after the gunfire and kidnappings and everything,” she said. “Just look at us. Couple of chickens.”

“Yeah.”

She said, “Read them with me?”

“If you want me to.”

“Well, that's what I want,” she said. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you, man,” she said.

We looked at each other for a long moment, me and her, her and me. Partners in crime. The moon came out and touched my daughter's face, and a cool breeze whispered through the grasses, and it was a perfect autumn night at my father's house at Indian Vale, and damned if I wasn't crying.