Where the dead lay

TWENTY-FOUR

Vicky Schlegel stood in front of a window-unit air conditioner that was losing in its valiant effort to staunch the heat. She was taking a cigarette/iced coffee break from rearranging the knickknacks and photos on the living room shelves. It wasn’t easy to concentrate on her task, though, considering the problems and the noise. The noise was the music, mean and ominous, coming from Charlie’s room. A singer wailed about having a “ball and a biscuit,” and then blaring guitar erupted and shot through her head.

The problems were Deanie’s. She held a picture of him, standing on a softball diamond, sweet and unfettered only a few years back. Now her boy was hurting and Vicky knew why: it was that mocha-skinned bitch he couldn’t get over. Vicky had met her a few times-she’d only been to the house on a couple occasions, since she had a place of her own-and Vicky had seen her in action turning not just Deanie, but Charlie and even Terry, all drooling and stupid. Only her Kenny-bear seemed immune to the girl’s skanky Latin charms. It was bad enough when they were together, but now she’d gone and met someone else and left Deanie a mess. Vicky didn’t know anything concrete, but she was sure of it. A girl disappears like that, and that’s what it means. Her mother’s intuition told her that much. And it made Vicky want to pluck the broad’s smoky brown eyes out.

Then there was the fact that Terry was working the boys too hard. She looked at another framed picture of them, the three boys and Terry, about seven years back out at the fairground. Kenny was just a kid and hadn’t had his growth spurt yet. Charlie and Dean were teenagers, gangly, awkward, and unformed. It was hard to imagine them all then the way they would become: tough and funny and thick with muscle. They were doing well. It was an unbelievable plan Terry had. Sure, they’d had to do some rough stuff, that’s how it was in business. And who, really, had more grit than her men? No-fucking-body, that’s who. But they’d been at it all times of the day and night these last few months, and she could see the effects. Terry’s complexion had gone a little gray from fatigue, especially under the eyes. And all of them had grown a bit grim as of late. Except for Kenny. He’d kept his color and his bounce. But the snuffling and crying coming from Dean’s room, the mass of empty bottles she saw in there when he finally let her in to change the sheets once a week, and the snorting she heard coming through the door every hour or so had her practically grateful for the distraction of Charlie’s music. Practically, but not completely. And what the hell was he always doing on the phone in there? With all the racket, no less? Thousands of minutes per month. She’d seen the usage on his cell bill. A relentless, skin-peeling guitar solo leaked through the walls. She banged on the door to his room.

“Charlie! My ears are bleeding!” she yelled. The result? The “music” got louder.

Something needed to be done for Deanie, and she wondered what she could do. She grabbed her cell and went outside into the heat and quiet and dialed her brother.

“Larry Bustamante, please,” she said to whoever answered, and then she waited a minute.

“Bustamante,” came through the phone.

“Hi, Larry, it’s Vick. Can you find someone for me?”

Dean was feeling skinny, scared, and off his game. He was brain fucked completely. He’d been sitting in his room with the lights off all day and the only thing he’d left for was to piss and to get more to drink. He couldn’t shake the other night. It kept playing back in his head like a grind-house movie. He’d felt a wave of adrenaline and dread hit him that was unlike anything he’d ever experienced that night when he was in the bathroom waiting for the shake house to empty. He knew there was going to be trouble when he stepped out. Of course he knew there was going to be trouble in general-that’s what they were there for-but somehow he knew he was going to see a gun. He’d just felt it. It was like he had developed fear-based ESP. And instead of that knowledge fueling him, causing him to be so pissed off that he crossed the living room right at the little spic and put him down before there was any question, it made his limbs hang like wet towels, like fucking boiled noodles. He had gripped the edge of the sink and held on as his breath came in furious stabs and he felt like he was going to yak. He thought of what his father had said a few years back, when he had quit wrestling-that he was truly happy he had such a sweet daughter in Dean. The memory of that insult was the only thing that got him out the bathroom door.

Even then, once he was in the living room, he hadn’t moved quickly, because his feet were stuck in fear cement, and he had almost fucked up the whole thing beyond repair. It was only last-minute self-preservation and the spic’s unpracticed gun handling that saved his ass. And even then, when he’d gotten the guy down, instead of taking the risk of controlling the guy’s gun wrist with one of his hands, which would have allowed him to punch and elbow with his other, Dean had grabbed on with two and settled for rolling around, hanging on for dear life until the others showed up and bailed his ass out.

I’m in the wrong line of work, Dean thought. If “work” is what you could call it. And nothing’s been right since she left.

Charlie’s tunes were giving him a headache. He needed to get some air. Suddenly he knew where to go. He put on his shoes and grabbed his keys. He paused at the door for a moment, listening for his mom over the music, hoping to miss her and her laser eyes on his way out.

Charlie saw Dean, slump shouldered and shuffling, slide into his Magnum and drive off. God knows to where, the poor bastard, Charlie thought. At least he’s going someplace for a change. Charlie poked his head out his bedroom door and saw his mother outside through the sliders; she was on the phone, facing away, smoking a cigarette, and he decided to make the most of the opportunity. He moved down the hallway and turned up the stairs to the walk-in attic. All the family’s storage stuff was in the basement and one of the garage bays, so it was a part of the house that no one used-no one except him. There was a doorknob lock, and the key for it lived in the utility drawer in the kitchen, but that key no longer worked should anyone try to use it, because Charlie had changed a pin on the lock and had his own new key. He used it and entered.

Fuck, he thought to himself as the smell hit him; good thing he was close to the end of the cycle. The hot, poorly ventilated space was redolent of the thickly budded marijuana that he had grown under six banks of high-intensity-discharge mercury halide lamps, better known as grow lights. It was a good thing the DEA’s use of infrared spotting planes had been ruled illegal search, because if one had passed over the house its scanning screen would have registered like a volcano was erupting in the attic. The lamps threw off three thousand lumens per square foot, and a lot of heat came with that, more than the exhaust fan could properly handle. And if they found the weed, they’d then find the blow and the oxy and he’d be carted away in bracelets and the house probably seized.

It hadn’t been easy getting the apparatus upstairs-someone was always home-and wiring the ballasts from diagrams he’d found online, and cultivating the plants when he wasn’t even a weed head, but he’d eventually managed.

That’s the ole American entrepreneurial spirit, he supposed. Mom, since she wrote the checks for the household expenses, may have been bitching about their running the air conditioners night and day, her understanding of the insane electrical bills, but the old man would skin him plain and simple if he discovered the grow op and the rest of it. He’d try to skin him anyway. It was debatable whether Terry could take Charlie anymore. He wouldn’t say his father had gone soft, that wasn’t accurate-more like he’d just lost some force lately, probably due to his getting older. His age, that was what had to be behind their latest piece of work as well. The old man was getting all Godfather II and shit. Trying to prop up his ego with grand designs, cloaked in the idea that it was for Charlie and his brothers. What else could explain something like trying to corner shake houses city-wide? For profitability, nothing could beat drugs. If he wanted to secure their future, Terry should’ve supported his, Dean, and Kenny’s efforts in that department.

“You want to lose everything, dealing drugs is the prescription,” is what Terry always said, though.

Sure, there was risk, Charlie understood, but so was there reward.

Guess that’s why it’s a play for the young, he practically said aloud, locking the door behind him. And it’s not like the current project is risk-free, for fuck sake. He thought of the other night in the house on Traub with a grimace. The little man had cried and cried when the first two or three chops hadn’t done it yet. And then he’d shit himself when it was finally over. What a fucking mess.

The attic space was dark, the lamps dormant now, as he was in the curing phase. The cut plants hung upside down and had dried to a smokable state. Charlie found his scale and set about bagging the stuff into z-bags. It wouldn’t be long before he moved it all. Then he’d take a break, cut the risk profile, and decide what to do with his cash.

If Sheila Fleck, the middle-aged manager of the Valu-Stay Suites, where Ken Bigby and Derek Schmidt had been lodging while in Indianapolis, had any reaction to the abrasion across the bridge of Behr’s nose, she wasn’t showing it.

“I need to get into the rooms of a pair of our operatives,” Behr had said to her when he arrived and identified himself as a Caro employee. She was more interested in his clothes.

“Thought you boys always wore suits,” she said.

“Yeah, we do. It’s my day off, they just asked me to swing by,” he said.

“Follow me,” she said, surprising him with her pliability. “You folks are paying the bill, so I’m happy to open the door…” She used her master key card to open the first door with a swipe, and then she asked: “Your coworkers forget something?”

Behr saw immediately what she meant. Caro had already been there. Schmidt’s belongings had been packed up and rested on a dinette table in unsealed cardboard boxes. “Yeah, they forgot something important we need down at the office,” Behr said. “Schmidt and Bigby got reassigned to something new out of town,” he added lamely and unnecessarily.

“That’s what the other boys said,” she observed, stepping back into the kitchenette to wait as Behr began looking through the boxes. All they contained were folded clothes, shoes, toiletries, newspapers, and magazines. It was clear the room had been totally sanitized. Whatever had been there by way of files, notes, or a laptop had been removed by those Caro assholes, who sure liked to make things difficult.

Behr stopped what he was doing and stepped back.

“Can’t find it?” Sheila asked.

“No,” Behr said. He couldn’t see anything of use at all. He fished around in a large plastic cup from Burger King. It held about a pound of change and matchbooks from various places- Indy Dancers, Big Daddy Rays, the Tip-Over Tap Room, the Red Garter-that told him Schmidt didn’t mind spending time in a bar.

“Maybe your coworkers got it after all,” she suggested.

Behr nodded.

“You want to check the other room?” she wondered.

He didn’t feel the need to bother with another sterile room that wouldn’t say much of anything about the men he was looking for or where to find them.

“Sure,” Behr said anyway, a slave to method, and trudged after her toward Bigby’s room.

Kenny Schlegel pulled into the lot of Nick’s Chili Parlour and saw his pop’s car was already there. He walked inside to find Terry and Knute sitting over a feast that turned his stomach. The sign outside announced the special of the day, and that’s what they’d ordered: four chili dogs or a half pound of fish for $5.94. What a deal. They also had a bowl of chili in front of each of them.

“No wonder you’re fighting the spare tire-age,” Kenny said, sitting down.

“This one’s for you, funny man,” Terry said, sliding the paper basket of fish and chips toward Kenny. He looked down at it, a fried golden mess, and started picking the batter off as he spoke.

“So I was out in Muncie…,” Kenny began.

“The kid drives forty miles to roll around on a mat with a bunch of guys. Probably burns two tanks of gas a week,” Terry said.

“Can’t you find a boyfriend here?” Knute chimed in.

“Good one,” Kenny said, eating a piece of the white fish.

“Look at my sweet little girl, eating his fish filet,” Terry said, causing Knute to snort out a laugh.

“Some shit went down at the gym today,” Kenny said, spitting out a fine translucent bone. “Brody got into a real brawl. Big-time knockout.”

“Yeah?” Terry said, half interested. He turned to Knute. “This kid Brody is a real monster.”

“He dust another student?” Knute asked.

“Nope. Brody got wasted.”

“What do you mean?” Terry said, truly surprised, which was a rare thing. “Francovic?” Terry asked.

“No.”

“Who?”

“Some raw motherfucker, his jits was all rough, but he got it done.”

“What happened?” Knute asked.

“They beefed. Brody got in his face, took him down, and had him in a rear naked choke, but the guy busted a few of Brody’s fingers, got out of it, and punched his ticket. Knee strikes to the head.”

“He knocked fucking Len Brody out?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

“Who is this guy, Randy Couture?”

“A guy who came in asking around about some shit, and it just developed,” Kenny said.

“Cop?” Terry said, concerned, but keeping it out of his voice.

“No. Those bastards can’t wait to flash their badges around. This guy came back two times and didn’t do that. Afterward, I heard he was a private investigator asking about Santos.”

“What’d you do about it?” Terry asked. He didn’t bother hiding the concern anymore.

“Stayed out of his way.” Kenny said. “Heard he went in and talked to Francovic for a while. Then I heard he left. I’d already powdered out of there, took Brody to the doctor. Figured whatever was up, that was the best bet.”

“Yeah,” Terry said, and then he thought about it for a long moment. When he finally spoke again he said, “So what you gotta do now is, you gotta go ask Francovic who he is.”

“Yeah?”

“Fucking-A right. Just go in there wide-eyed, all ‘Hey, Mr. Francovic’ or ‘Hey, Master Francovic’-whatever the hell you call him-who was that bad, bad man who hurt Len Brody?”

“Okay,” Kenny said, not feeling too sure about it.

“Do it. Don’t make a special trip. Your next workout,” Terry said.

“All right,” Kenny said.

“Then bring back the name.” Terry tore a chili dog in half with his jaws and spoke through the meat and bread. “Tell your brothers.”

Kenny just nodded.