“ Yes, in his eyes. I am thinking these are not nice men. Very bad. As you must know, they work for Dr. Kohler. Where he found them, nobody knows, but many people are wishing he would send them back.”
“ Have they been into any trouble?”
“ No, I don’t think so. You would have to ask Sheriff Sturgees. It’s just that they look at you with contempt, like you’re beneath them. I could well imagine them as Gestapo working under a man like Kohler. They seem well suited for that kind of work.”
“ You wouldn’t happen to know where they live, would you?”
“ They live at Kohler’s.”
“ That’s cozy.”
“ The doctor is away most of the time. When he’s out of town you can find the Markham brothers Tampico side, drinking at the Long Bar, or here. When the doctor is in residence, they stick to him like shadows.”
“ One more question, not related. When I was a boy my dad used to take me Tampico side to Dewey’s Men’s shop. It was the only place you could buy Levi’s. This Dewey related?” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
“ His son.”
“ And old man Dewey? Is he still alive?”
“ Very much so and still selling Levi’s in the same location.”
“ It’s good to see that not everything has changed.” Washington took a long pull on his beer.
“ Much here has, like the murders this morning.”
“ What murders?”
“ A woman was attacked on the beach early this morning, right in front of her son. Fortunately an alert passerby was swift thinking and ran the homeless beggar down in his jeep.”
Hugh felt sick. He was a trained cop. He should have stopped and made sure that woman was all right.
“ Is she okay?” he asked.
“ Oh yes, the man was stopped before he could cut her.”
“ He had a knife?”
“ Oh yes, a big knife, a Bowie knife.”
“ Very bad,” Washington said, glad the woman hadn’t been hurt.
“ But it looks like he killed a young family earlier, before he attacked the woman. We are getting too much like the big city. Soon I fear I will have to look for another place to bring up my children.”
“ Where? It’s getting to be the same all over.”
“ Out by Victorville maybe, the high desert, not much crime there?”
“ What kind of life can kids have out there?” Washington wanted to know.
“ I just want them to have a life.”
“ I understand that,” Washington said, thinking about Glenna and what America’s violent society had done to her.
“ I went to a lot of trouble to become an American,” Jaspinder Singh said, as if reading his mind, “but I want my kids safe. I might leave. Maybe Canada or Australia,” he paused for a few seconds, “or New Zealand. Someplace safe.”
He sat with Jaspinder Singh through three more beers, before bidding the man goodnight. He should have gone too, but he stayed, sipping beer and feeling sorry for himself, till last call. Never again, he told himself, as he went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.
Knowing he couldn’t sleep and feeling that he’d let Glenna down by not being on station in the thicket across from Kohler’s, he decided to go out there now. He changed back into the camouflage clothes he’d bought earlier, having to struggle into them. He wasn’t drunk, he thought, just a little tight, but deep down he knew that if he would’ve pulled himself over, he would’ve taken himself to jail. He grabbed his keys and went out the door.
He cranked the ignition, the starter motor whirred, but the car didn’t start. He tried again, nothing. The car was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t listening. He pumped the gas three times, held the pedal to the floor, cranked the ignition a third time and the car sprang into life. He drove out of the parking lot, making a left turn on Mountain Sea Road, toward Kohler’s and that dirt road a quarter mile beyond.
It was a quarter to three when he turned onto the dirt track and parked the car. Once the headlights were off he was bathed in black. It was a dark night, the moon and stars hidden under a low, cloud-covered sky. Like last night, he thought, when he’d found the blood all over the walls. He had the unshakable feeling that the overhanging clouds and the bloody walls in that room were intertwined and he shivered, but he was too drunk to be afraid.
He fumbled the keys out of the ignition and stumbled out of the car. He wondered how he made it out here and how he was going to get the trunk open with his unsteady hands in the dark, but he did. He took out the carbine, the extra clip and the flashlight, then closed the trunk.
“ Prepared, like a boy scout,” he mumbled, as he flicked the flashlight’s switch. The light stayed dark. “Some boy scout,” he said, still mumbling. “No batteries.” But through the fog haze he vaguely remembered buying some. Again he fumbled with the keys, struggling with the trunk. Once it was open, he ran his hands around the interior, like a blind beggar searching for a dropped quarter.
He found the batteries and fought another dark struggle with the plastic wrap and another getting them into the flashlight, but still it wouldn’t light. He took the batteries out and reversed them. Still no light. He slumped over and started to fall, but he threw out his hands and held on to the car for support.
He stayed like that, fighting nausea and trying to hold down the vomit that wanted to come. He lost the battle and threw up. His stomach muscles clenched as great gobs of viscous vomit seemed to tear his insides apart. He fought for air, wanting it to stop, hoping it would stop, but still he heaved, spewing out the contents of his stomach and continuing on, dry heaving.
Finally it stopped, leaving him gasping for air, his body demanding oxygen. He used the car for support, bending over the right front fender, holding on to good old Power Glide. He took deep breaths, the way he’d seen Glenna do when she was doing her yoga exercises and after a few minutes he felt better.
He stood up, backed away from the car, faced into a cool breeze, forced his shoulders back and took one last, deep breath. The wind cooled his face. He felt better, less drunk and he wanted a cigarette. The stale Marlboros were in the glove box.
He slid into the passenger seat, popped the glovebox, grabbed the cigarettes and his gold Zippo. Normally he didn’t smoke in the car, but it was his rule and he felt like breaking it. He flipped a smoke into his mouth and flicked the lighter.
He inhaled deeply, sat back and closed his eyes. What was he doing out here in the middle of the night? By now Kohler had surely called the sheriff. If he was caught out here like this, it wouldn’t be hard for even the most incompetent of small town cops to stick him with the crime. It was stupid for him to have broken in that way. Even dumber to go at the video and sound equipment with the ax. It was a weakness, that kind of stuff made him go out of control.
He took another drag, held the tobacco in his lungs, exhaled the blue smoke, and didn’t feel any better. The cigarette wasn’t any help. He stubbed it out.
He should go back to the motel. Shower and sleep it off. He almost started the car to do just that, but as he was about to crank the ignition a picture of Glenna flashed through his mind and he knew he wasn’t going back to the motel. He cursed himself for drinking when his daughter was in danger, but he was confident he had purged himself from the worst of the alcohol’s effects. He got out of the car.
The dark clung to him like a second skin, blocking his vision and chilling his soul. There was just enough light for him to see the road at his feet and two arm lengths ahead, not any more. A good boy scout would have checked the flashlight and made sure it worked before embarking on such a fool’s errand, but boy scouts didn’t go on fools errands. A cop might-fathers do.
Clutching the carbine, holding it in front of himself, at the ready, he started his trek toward the gray house. He had almost made the twenty feet up to the road, when he heard the sound. A movement in the brush. He stopped and listened, more sober by the second. But he heard only silence.