“But who would do it? ... What would be the point?"
“The point. What's the point every time? Money, of course."
“I don't—"
“Mafia maybe, or the Latino families or—hell, what's the difference who? Somebody got a few business guys to front for ‘em. Found this pure virgin—” he meant the town “—carved a place out in the middle of the boonies—with nobody around to know from bupkes. Very fucking smart."
“Why come out here?"
“Cause the people are stupid around here. Because it's a damn ghost town full of greedy business pricks and farmers. Because crank is a smelly, dangerous mess to cook—and so's some of the other stuff. Because—they came, they saw, they built. Now they can cook all the dope they want and call it chemical research and development. Probably charge tickets to watch them wash the by-products down into the water table. Jeezus fucking shit I should have known!"
“What should we do, Royce?"
“Listen. Listen to me: There's a lot I haven't told you. But this is too much. We're in too deep. You have to know. I got jammed up on a drug thing. I'll tell you the details later, when we have time. I promise. They ... the assholes I was involved with—they turned me. I had to set up a guy who was a big drug dealer, act like I was the same thing. Engineer a deal to bring down a major supplier—you follow?"
“No. I haven't followed any of this since we saw the chemicals. And what kind of drug people bury their incriminating—you know—containers in their own backyard?"
“The kind who don't really give a shit. The kind who have so much clout and such ironclad protection, they can thumb their nose at local law, for one thing."
“But, Royce—I don't get this. You say you were setting up a drug dealer. Kerns said they were watching you—that you were a drug dealer and—"
“That fat shit doesn't know dick, okay? I'm a half-assed undercover narc, a former fuck-up who's getting over a bad cocaine dependency, and finally seeing a way to pull himself clear from a terrible situation. Just help me, baby, and don't bail. I need you. The people I work for—they gotta know about this. We got to tell them about it and get serious outside help. This could be so big—” He fell silent. Literally speechless. He began again.
“This Fisher guy—whatever his name is. Sinclair—the famous and elusive Christopher Sinclair. Fisher said he was in the Orient. What if the Japanese are behind this? Some megazillion Godzilla Megilla Gorilla consortium, backed by the Yakuza or somebody?"
“I don't see how you can know this is going to be a drug thing from finding some cans and things. Are you sure you—"
“It's what I do. This is what I do, dig?! I'm a fucking—” He could not quite bring himself to put a name on the sign he was wearing around his neck. He stopped and got coins and dialed a Memphis number.
“I'd like to talk with somebody about buying insurance please,” he whispered into the phone.
“Who's calling, sir?” A voice resonated into the other end of the line.
“A man who's insurance-poor.” He waited for the beep and gave his work number and read the dial tone off into the recording unit, hanging up. Within thirty seconds it pinged and he picked it up.
“I need to talk to Wilcox."
“This is an insecure line, sir. Please use proper procedure,” the agent on the phones scolded him.
“I don't give a rat fuck how insecure this line is,” he seethed, “put that prick on the phone.” His poison threatened to melt the phone.
“Problems?” A familiar voice crackled in his ear.
“You'd better pray not. You got the makings of a three-hundred-acre processing lab in Waterton, Missouri. Don't say anything yet. Just get this down. Ecoworld, they call it. A construction project supposedly funded by a D.C.-area or New York-based company called World Ecosphere, Inc. Guy named Joseph Fisher. Probably bullshit front guy. Major money behind it. There's all kind of PC to bring in the Feds, a CLET and a HAMR unit—the whole works. Armed guards with H&Ks and silenced Steyrs, missing people, dead people—they—"
“Whoa. Whoa. Hold it! Take it easy. Slow down. What's this about missing people?"
Royce forced himself to slow down and run it down—every last nasty tidbit that he could remember, from the setup with Sam Perkins to the rumored serial killer.
“What about Happy and his biker pukes?” Royce asked.
“All under control."
“You got Papa then?"
“Nailed and mailed, man. You did great."
“What the hell was he doing with a scumball like Happy? I could never see how this punk got a rating."
“Ruiz? He and the old man did a bit together in the joint. Happy did some chump time in ATC and Booneville, little felony-assault priors and crap—coupla voluntaries that got pled down and whatnot, and he fell on a technicality and ended up in the bucket again. Just a puke, but him and Papa became big buds, and the man set the little weenie up with some bikers. He's nothing. He's shit."
“But have you busted him yet? He's gonna be jazzed to get me, man. What's the story?"
“I'll get right back to you on that, but I gotta go get on this. We'll send a team in—you say it's that righteous. You're gonna be out from under the brown blanket.” The daddy rabbit broke the connection.
“But...” Yeah. That's what it was gonna be, all right. Butt!
26
NEAR WHITETAIL POND
They drove back the long way around, so as not to have to get near the Waterworks Road area, or the more-traveled Cotton Avenue. Royce went down the county gravel to Farm-to-Market, and cut through Bill Wise's place to Market Road, driving all the way out past Slabtown on North Market. He was fighting serious seizures of fear. They'd written him off.
He tried a dozen times to begin telling Mary, who was visibly confused and frightened.
“Are you gonna talk to me?” she finally asked.
“Yeah,” he said, forcing a smile. “I'm gonna talk to you.” They passed a pizza joint and he slowed down. “You hungry?"
“No."
He pulled up and stopped in front of a small packaged goods store. “I'll be right back.” She didn't say anything. He went in and bought some chilled wine and snack foods. He had to have something in there to help soak up the acid that was threatening to eat its way through the lining of his stomach.
“Okay,” he said with a sigh, getting back in the vehicle and starting the motor, putting the sack behind the seat and pulling out onto the blacktop. “I'll start at the beginning. It's a long story."
“I've got lots of time, Royce,” she said. It was all he could do not to say, I hope so."
“You know what it's like here. Not exactly your cosmopolitan big city. Two Jews and one black guy, and they don't like to admit it. Nothing to do but get high and gossip. I hated this place then. Remember?” He meant when they broke up. She remembered only too well.
“There wasn't an ounce of sophistication or excitement here. You were the only thing good about it, and you wanted to be married so desperately, it was your entire focus. You were in love with the idea of settling down. It was like a—” he edited himself and didn't say the words bear trap “—thing I couldn't come to terms with. I thought we'd get stuck in the marriage, like so many others had, and we'd both come to hate each other.” He looked over. She was listening, without any expression.