The Fallen

Chapter 21

“You’re up late, young fella. Or else up early.”

As Decker approached the house with the light on, he saw an old man sitting on the covered porch in his wheelchair. He also noted the wooden ramp leading up to the porch.

The wood-shingled house was small and in disrepair. The sole tree out front was full of dead leaves. The small lawn had gone to weeds. Everything had a wasted look to it, as though it were all just waiting to die.

Parked in the carport next to the house was an old passenger van.

Decker stopped in front of the house. “So are you.”

The man was wrinkled and sunken in the wheelchair. His head was bald and covered with brown splotches from sun damage. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles. He shrugged. “Get to my age, what’s time matter?” He tugged his sweater more tightly around him and shivered slightly. Though it was humid with the rain, he had a blanket over his legs.

The man must have noticed that Decker was looking at the blanket.

“Summer, winter, hell, it don’t matter. Still get the chills. Docs say it’s a circulation problem. I say it’s my pipes getting clogged with living too long. See, that’s a reason to not be around too many years. Everything falls apart.”

“So you live here?”

“What’s it look like?”

“You’re Fred Ross?”

“Who wants to know?” Ross snapped.

“Me. I’m Amos Decker.”

“Amos? Haven’t heard that name in a long time. Reminds me of that show, Amos ’n Andy? Long time ago. Hell, everything’s a long time ago. Goes with being old. I’m eighty-five. Most days I feel like I’m a hundred and eighty-five. Some days I wake up and wonder who the hell I am. How’d that old man get in my body? It ain’t no fun.”

Decker drew closer to the porch. The rain had ceased, so he lowered his umbrella. “Were you here two nights ago, Mr. Ross?”

Lassiter had said that Ross had probably not been home, but Decker wanted to hear this for himself.

Ross looked down the street. “You mean when whatever happened there happened?”

“Yeah.”

“You a cop?”

“Yeah.”

“Saw them go in earlier,” Ross said, pointing down the street. “Looked like Feds to me.”

“How do you know that?”

“I watch TV.”

“So, were you here that night?”

Ross shook his head. “Hospital. Had a breathing problem. I’m okay now. I get lots of breathing problems. Folks at the emergency room know me on a first-name basis. Ain’t nothing to be proud of, I can tell you that. If you’re old and rich, that’s one thing. But old and poor, I don’t recommend it, Amos.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Have the police been by to see you?”

“No. I just got back today, see. Or yesterday now, I guess.”

“You live alone?”

Ross nodded. “The missus died, oh, nearly twenty years ago now. Smoking. Don’t never smoke, Amos, ’less you want to die in godawful agony.”

“You ever see anybody around that house, Mr. Ross? Anybody at all? Even if they seemed innocuous. Or anything that seemed odd, out of place?”

His gaze boring into Decker, Ross said, “Eyes ain’t too good, so I don’t see much at all no more.”

“I see you’re wearing glasses. And you said you saw the ‘Feds’ at the house.”

Ross took his glasses off and wiped them on his sweater. “Most houses on this street are empty. Baronville, mostly empty too.” He put the specs back on.

“But a new fulfillment center is here.”

Ross shrugged. “Ain’t enough jobs to bring the town back. And don’t pay what the old jobs paid. Hell, nothing pays like the old jobs did. I never went to college, never had the chance, but I had me a good-paying job. Now, if you don’t know computers, you’re screwed.” He held up his hands. “Nobody builds nothing no more. Just typing crap on a keyboard. That’s all folks do now. Typing. I mean, hell, what kinda job is that?”

“Did you work at the mines or the mills?”

“Coal, paper mill, and then the textile mill. At the mills, I fixed the machines. Did some of that at the coke plant too. When you come into this town back then, you could smell the stench. The coal, and the crap we used to make the paper. I heard the Barons used to call it the smell of money. Screw them. Now the Mexicans and Orientals do all that for pennies a day. Before long they’ll have damn robots doing it. Then the Chinamen and Mexies will be out of a job too.” He cackled. “Used to be a railroad line that ran right through the middle of town to take the coal and coke to the Pittsburgh steel mills and also to other parts of the country to keep the lights on. Yeah, I was a miner, but I got outta that early. Paid good but, hell, who wants black lung, right? What my missus died of, really, and she never stepped foot in a mine. Didn’t want that crap inside me. No sir.”

“Did you know the Baron family?”

“Assholes, all of ’em.”

Ross spat on the porch.

“Why’s that?”

“Created this place and then let it go to hell, that’s why. That man sits in that big house on the hill and looks down on all of us. Son of a bitch!”

“John Baron, you mean?”

“Asshole.”

“But you earned a good living, right? You said you did.”

“Well, I worked for it. Nobody ever gave me a damn thing. Worked my hands to the bone. Sure, I made money, but they made a helluva lot more.”

“Do you have any family?”

“One son who never comes to see the man what brought him into this world. Screw him.”

Decker eyed the wheelchair. “What happened to you?”

Behind the glass lenses Ross’s eyes seemed to shrink to the size of black pellets. “What happened to me? Hell, life happened to me, all you need to know.”

“Okay. Did you ever see anyone around that house?”

“You say you’re a cop? How do I know that? I’m old, so I’m skeptical of everything and everybody.”

Decker approached him and held out his creds.

“FBI, huh?” said Ross, his small eyes gazing from puckered sockets over the identification card. He looked down the street. “Feds all over the place. Why’s that? Two dead bodies in that house, the TV said. Why’s that federal stuff, I wonder?”

“Lots of stuff is federal stuff,” replied Decker.

“Too much,” snapped Ross with another dollop of spit delivered to his porch. “Government is into every damn thing we do. I’m sick of it.”

“So you’re into every person for themselves?”

“I’m into keeping the government outta my business. And I’m into the government stop taking sides of folks that don’t need no help. Look at me, I got nothing. You don’t see me crying about it. You don’t see me asking for handouts because I got some problem, or because I feel like somebody didn’t give me a fair shot. Hell, nothing about life is fair. You don’t like it, go back to where you come from, is what I say, and don’t let the American flag hit you on the ass on your way out.”

“Interesting philosophy,” noted Decker.

“Hell, I don’t know nothing about philosophy. I just see the world with my own two eyes. For what it really is.”

“And what is the world, really?”

“Not nearly as good as it used to be for people like me.”

Decker decided to shift the discussion. “So, you maybe saw people around that house, you said?”

“I forget now.”

“Mr. Ross, if you know something you really need to tell me.”

“Why’s that, I wonder? ’Cause you’re a Fed? That supposed to be some magic word or something?”

“No, I’m a cop trying to find out the truth.”

Ross grinned maliciously. “That’s what they say on TV too. I didn’t believe it then, don’t believe it now.”

“If you saw something and don’t tell us, the people who killed those men might come to the same realization. That you might have seen something. You could be in danger.”

In answer, Ross lifted the blanket covering his withered legs to reveal a sawed-off shotgun. He lifted the muzzle in Decker’s general direction.

“Had this baby a long time. Remington double ought Magnum load. Locked and loaded. Anybody comes after me, they’re in danger. Including Feds. And I don’t fire no warning shots. Never saw the need.”

Decker took a step back. “Just so you know, threatening a federal officer is a crime. And if you fire that kind of load with a shortened barrel it’ll knock you and your wheelchair right through a wall with the recoil and dislodge any fillings you might have. And your chances for a second shot are nil because you’ll probably have a concussion.”

“Who gives a damn about a concussion if whatever I’m firing at looks like a piece of Swiss cheese?”

“And I’m pretty sure sawed-off shotguns are illegal in Pennsylvania. I could arrest you for possessing one.”

The old man leaned forward. “Maybe you’ll learn this, Amos, while you’re here, and maybe you won’t.”

“What’s that?”

“There ain’t nothing really illegal in Baronville.”