Sawbones

Chapter 15

The Fish Trap Lounge, Des Moines

It’s been nearly an hour and we’ve still not heard anything from the big guy in the Hawkeyes jacket. Henry’s on his third beer with a bourbon chaser. Jack’s nursing a grudge and a soda, staring up at a rerun of some baseball game on a crappy little television above the bar. And I’m giving myself an ulcer from drinking way too much coffee.

The bar-tender comes round again to see if we want anything, and Henry goes for another beer, even though it’s only eleven in the morning.

“Take it easy,” I say when the guy’s gone away again, “you’re going to be shit-faced by lunchtime.”

Henry looks at me. “We’re not talking about this again.”

“I’m just saying, is all.”

“Yeah, well, don’t.” But at least he makes this beer last.

I’m thinking about ordering more hot wings, or maybe a burger, when the guy in the jacket comes back. “This favour,” he says, sitting at our table, “it got anything to do with Mr Jones’s daughter going missing?”

Henry takes a swig at his bottle of Bud. “You got a name and address for us?”

But Jacket Man ain’t put off that easy. “I need to know if this is about that Sawbones guy.”

There’s silence for a moment, as Henry transfers his attention from the beer to the guy. “You got a name for us, or not?”

Jacket Man stares at him. “I got four brown Winnebagos in Polk County with National Guard plates.” He takes a folded bit of paper out of his pocket and places it on the table. “It wasn’t easy getting hold of these.”

Henry nods. “Favours for favours.”

“That’s why I gotta know — is this about that Sawbones guy?”

Jesus, he just won’t let it rest.

“Yeah,” says Henry, picking up the bit of paper, “you and me going to have a problem?”

The guy shakes his head. “You tell Mr Jones this info’s compliments of Bill Luciano. Some sick bastard snatches his kid we’re going to do everything we can.” He nods at the list in Henry’s hand. “You want a couple of guys to help?”

Henry stands and slips the note into his inside pocket. “You thank Mr Luciano for the offer, but we got some things we need to do that it’s probably best he don’t know about, if you know what I mean. Mr Jones won’t forget the help.”

“Any time.” He pulls a business card out of his wallet. “Anything you need, you give me a call.”

We say thanks and head out into the sunshine.

The first address turns up a little old lady with a filthy Winnebago sitting round the back of her crumbling wooden house. She says the motor home belonged to her son, but he got himself shot in Afghanistan, do we want to buy it?

We don’t.

Address number two belongs to a couple of junkies, living in a crappy motel with hot and cold running cockroaches. They got a pair of little girls, playing in the car park out front, wearing nothing but filthy underwear. Not even any fucking socks. Henry’s all for taking the husband out for a ‘drive’, maybe teach the guy it ain’t nice to let your kids go feral like that. But the Winnebago don’t got no hula Elvis, little Jesus, or bullet holes in the back, and we’re in a hurry, so it’s the guy’s lucky day.

The third address is for a farm out in the sticks. All the way out the road, Henry’s going on about how that asshole back at the motel doesn’t deserve to have kids, and how come fuckers like that can get enough cash together to buy drugs but can’t afford to get his daughters a pair of fucking socks?

Once we get out of Des Moines, Iowa turns into this huge checker-board of square fields — soy beans, then corn, then soy beans, then corn, then more corn. On and on for miles. It’s weird, like someone laid out the whole state with a ruler.

Every now and then we pass a wooden house with a couple of cars in the drive and another out the back, American flag flying in the yard. Mr Luciano’s guy wasn’t joking about that patriotic stuff.

Jack’s sitting in the backseat with the map, muttering to himself every time we pass a junction. “OK,” he says at last, “it’s the next right.”

I take the turning and the tarmac road gives way to gravel. The little stones pinging up into the wheel arches as I follow Jack’s directions. About five minutes later the gravel gives out and we’re left on a farm track full of potholes.

Jack points at a rambling wooden farmhouse off to the left. “There.”

I pull up, blocking in a new-ish looking pick-up. Henry’s first out, stretching the kinks out of his back.

“Frank Williams,” he says, reading it off the piece of paper Mr Luciano’s guy gave us, “he’s a chaplain in the National Guard.”

“Uh-huh,” I pull out my gun, check it’s loaded, then rack the slide back and stick the safety on. “In God We Trust.”

“Yup.”

“Jesus,” says Jack, staring at my semi-automatic, “ain’t you got a proper gun? Damn thing looks like it came free with a Happy Meal.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I’m not worried about people thinking I got a tiny dick like you.” Just because my Heckler and Kotch USP Compact is small, doesn’t mean it can’t blow a fucking big hole in someone.

Jack grins. “My dick was big enough for your sister. And your mom — ”

Henry holds up a hand. “Shut it, you two. Trying to do a fuckin’ job here. .” He marches up to the farmhouse door and knocks.

Nothing happens.

So we go round the side of the house — there’s a chain-link fence making a compound around a kennel, the ground all dug up and speckled with shit, but no sign of the dog that did it. From the size of the mounds of crap, the damn animal’s got to be HUGE.

The yard’s a mess of trees, long grass and bushes. A pair of blue jeans and a black shirt hang limp and damp on the washing line.

Henry tries the back door — locked. We’re talking about kicking it in when Jack wanders off to the other end of the yard, peering back between the trees. Next thing I know he’s ducking down and waving at us. Pointing at whatever it is he’s found.

It’s a brown Winnebago, parked alongside a concrete barn with a sagging tin roof. We can only see the back of the motor home, but that’s enough, the rear’s peppered with bullet holes and the bumper sticker says ‘In God We Trust’.

We’ve found him.

Everyone checks their guns again.

Jack nods back at the house. “So where the hell is he?”

“I don’t know, do I?” says Henry. “Taking the dog for a walk?”

And that’s when we hear it — a man’s voice singing Onward Christian Soldiers, coming from somewhere on the other side of the barn.

Henry gives me the signal and we lope through the long grass to the Winnebago, guns held out at the ready, Jack hurrying along behind. The motor home’s side door is open — a quick check shows a sticky red carpet scattered with bits of skull and brain, tie-down rings bolted into the floor and walls, thin bars of light seeping in through the bullet holes.

No one there.

We creep round the side of the barn.

There’s about twelve rusty cars abandoned in the long grass, shitty old Fords and Volvos and — “Fucking hell.” I tap Henry on the shoulder and point at the Dodge pickup nearest to us. There’s a terrified-looking girl chained to the driver’s seat, wearing a gag. I take another look at the ancient automobiles and I can see other women, but there’s no sign of Laura.

Jack says, “Jesus!” and starts toward the car. He’s no more than six paces past the edge of the barn when there’s this deep growling sound. Jack freezes, but the growling doesn’t stop.

A bloody massive dog slinks out of the long grass, teeth bared as it sizes Jack up.

“Good doggie?” says Jack, even though the fucking thing clearly isn’t.

It tenses up, ready to spring and Jack raises his Glock nine mm. “Don’t even think about it.”

Too late. Suddenly it’s bounding through the grass, barking, teeth flashing like knives. And Jack puts a bullet in it. BANG!

The dog doesn’t stop. BANG! BANG!

BANG! Each one sending a little explosion of red bursting out of the animal’s body. The thing’s legs go out from underneath it and it slithers to a halt not four feet away from Jack. Damn thing still isn’t dead — it lies there whimpering, one paw twitching as it slowly bleeds out.

Jack turns to say something to us, but only gets as far as, “Did you — ”

BOOM!

The left side of Jack’s face disappears in a spray of blood and bone.

Suddenly everything has gone very badly wrong.