Chapter 3

  

Marta's smile filled the screen as cyberspace finally surrendered Jill's image and voice to the computer in her Merida home.  There would be time for reflection between the give and take of the video e-mail, a mixed blessing, that.  It was as different from normal conversation as e-mail from snail mail.

Marta's camera was slightly offset, producing an odd angle of her face.  Despite that, and the disconcerting delay, the visual was better than mere text, although it would take getting used to and lacked the immediacy of phone conversation.

 "Oh Jill, this is wonderful.  But not so good like seeing you in person.  When do you and Richard come to visit us?"

 "I'm not sure, Marta.  Perhaps Richard can get away during the holidays.  I would love to be there during Christmas."

Marta's static smile widened, then she nodded as the words finally arrived.

"You will love it.  Remember Merida during Holy Week.  Christmas is more---even better," she finished with a laugh.  "Jill.  You must come.  Without you, I lose my English"

"You sound wonderful to me.  I miss you so---and I really want to come.  I just don't know if we can.  Richard might not be able to schedule much time off---and then there is this canoe business."

Jill anticipated the wrinkling of Marta's brow, her earnest expression.

"But you must come.  Soy padrina and I must see my goddaughter soon."

"I'll try."

As if on cue, an exploratory yelp came from the nursery.

"Speaking of Mirabelle, I think I hear her.  Hold on.  She just woke up.  I'll get her."

Jill brought her bright-eyed child back and sat at the monitor.

"See how she's grown?"

Mirabelle looked at the screen only briefly before deciding that whatever she saw there wasn't real.  A little hand lashed out to grasp Jill's hair.

"Ouch!  You little monster.  Watch it."

Marta laughed a moment later.

"You must bring the child to me immediately," she said.  "La niña grows up too quickly, and her development . . . upbringing?  Yes.  Her upbringing . . . como se dice?" she said, trying to find the right phrase in English.  "She needs her Aunt Marta."

"Yes.  I want her to know you," said Jill.  "But Marta, we really can't afford it at the moment.  We borrowed money to buy the canoe business and are still paying the hospital bills.

A delayed change of expression.

"If it is only a matter of money, Alberto and I will be glad to give you enough for the trip."

"We can't let you do that, Marta."

Jill anticipated her friend's argument.

"Alberto's business is very prosperous.  We can afford this."

"But we can't, Marta.  Understand?  It's not that I don't want to come, but one does not borrow from a friend when he cannot repay promptly, and we can't."

She knew Marta wouldn't give it up so easily.

"Please, Jill.  You shouldn't worry about the money."

"I would worry about my friend, not the money."

Marta's face was set in the pleading look she had affected at such moments ever since Jill had known her.

"Your Aunt Mirabelle has taught you this," said Marta with a look of resignation.  "I understand, but I would never think about it, you know?"

"Marta, I can't take advantage of your generosity.  And it's not just pride.  As soon as we can, I promise we will come to visit.  Don't be angry with me."

"How can I be angry?  Tienes razon.  You are right."

After trying unsuccessfully to get Mirabelle to interact with Marta's image, Jill returned to the subject of the visit.

"You know, we can't afford the trip to Merida, but we can certainly afford to have you here if you can come, Marta."

"Now I must make the excuse.  Alberto is in Spain for two months, and someone must take care of his parents.  Normally, this is no problem, but his sister has---she and her husband have difficulties."

She paused, and Jill knew that she would say no more.  Even with a close friend Marta was reluctant to reveal family problems.

"Maybe things will be better by Christmas," said Marta hopefully.

"There is nothing I would rather do, Marta.  Más de amigas.  Somos hermanas."

"Claro.  We are sisters."

Marta smiled at the camera.  "Mirabelle," she called in a singsong voice.  "Niña mia."

Computer screens were of no interest to Mirabelle.  In fact, her mother's preoccupation with it was beginning to irritate her.  She squirmed and kicked.  Then she squeezed shut her eyes and her face began to turn red.

"What happens?" asked Marta in alarm as Mirabelle convulsed slightly, expelling the last of the air in her lungs.

"She is holding her breath," explained Jill calmly.  "Her father calls it pitching a fit."

Suddenly a howl split the air, and a moment later erupted in Marta's living room.

"Ay!" said Marta.  "My little one is angry.  La pobrecita doesn't like mama ignoring her so much."

"I'm going to have to put a stop to this," said Jill, embarrassed at her child's behavior.  "The little stinker thinks she can run things around here."

"You are too much like your Aunt Mirabelle for that."

"And you sound just like Richard," said Jill, getting up from the monitor.  "Just a minute, Marta.  If this one is going to have a tantrum, she can have it in her crib."

"No, Jill.  She is just a baby."

Jill closed the door to the nursery, resolving to come back for Mirabelle as soon as she quit crying, Marta's stern face greeted her as soon as she sat back down.

"Don't look at me that way," said Jill.  "You haven't seen the way she manipulates her father.  He spoils her."

"His heart is in the right place."

"It's not his heart I'm worried about.  It's his head.  When it comes to that one, he simply has no will power."

"Bring her to me, Jill.  Aunt Marta knows how to raise a child properly."

"Right!  You'll spoil her worse than Richard."

"Impossible.  Children cannot be spoiled before they are six or seven.  Before that the indulgence is only love.  One cannot have too much love."

"You are a dear friend, Marta, but I think you have dangerous ideas when it comes to children."

"Oh Jill!  I must see her.  I have not even held mi querida.  We must visit soon."

"We will, mi hermana.  We will," said Jill.  "Right now, I think it's time for tu querida to nurse.  Can I call you back later?"

"I must leave for the day.  Tonight maybe?" said Marta with an exaggerated expression of apology on her face.

Totally sincere, thought Jill, a difference in cultures.

"Yes.  I love you, dear.  Hasta pronto."

"Yes.  Until then.

 

After rescuing Mirabelle from well-deserved exile, Jill changed her daughter's cloth diaper.  Although considerably more inconvenient, traditional swaddling was more economical as well as better for the baby.  She sat in the big wooden rocker in the living room while Mirabelle nursed with contentment as old as the first lullaby.

Almost time to move you to the bottle, little one.  For now it is still this tactile love, mused Jill.  Mama will still hold you close, and Daddy will protect us all.

 

When Mirabelle had fallen asleep Jill placed her in the wooden crib and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner, or supper as the hill folk called it.  She was tossing the salad when she heard the front door close.  Richard called out to let her know he was home while he went through his routine.  After checking in on Mirabelle, he hung his uniform jacket and hat by the front door, placed the holstered pistol high on the shelf in the bedroom closet, and deposited his pocket contents on the night stand next to the phone.  After checking the caller ID, he washed up and

came to the kitchen where fresh coffee and his woman awaited.

"How was my little angel today?"

"Fine except for a squalling tirade that lasted about half an hour," said Jill.  "I'm going to stop that."

"Hold her breath again?" he asked as he poured two cups of coffee.

"Of course.  She has a real temper.  But we must not give in.  She'll just have to cry.  If she doesn't get rewarded for it, she'll grow out of it."

"I don't know," he said, taking the salad bowl from her hands and setting it aside before wrapping her in his arms.  "These Belbenoit women are pretty headstrong.  They can be real nasty if they don't get their way."

He cupped her rear and gently pulled her against him, making her think of last night.  He had been unable to perform and afterward had withdrawn.  As strong as she was, it had hurt.  Now she tried to pretend that it was only a temporary anomaly.  But even now she felt tension in his embrace, a troubling artificiality.

He was just tired, she told herself.

"I love you so," he said, as if in awe of the depth of his passion.

And that didn't seem artificial at all.

"You are my love," she answered in a whisper.

Further avowals of affection were short cut by a daughter whose timing was beginning to be impeccable in its inconvenience.

"Better go get the little home wrecker," said Richard, after pulling Jill hard against him one last time.

Another solitary yelp followed by an expectant silence.  Mirabelle was all coos and squirm when Richard brought back to the kitchen and sat down.  Jill noted that he no longer held her as gingerly as he had before.  Mirabelle seemed more comfortable too.

"You're getting better at that," she said.

"Nothing to it.  Just grab the little package like she's a football.  Never fumbled a baby yet."

While Richard held a meaningful, but totally incomprehensible conversation with his daughter, Jill split a cheap cut of meat and seasoned it for grilling.  She was making do, the sort of thing she had learned growing up as an unexpected, but completely welcome, dependent of a maiden aunt with limited means.  Richard, appreciated his young wife's money management skills, but had no clue as to the lengths she went to keep them solvent.

"I spoke with Marta earlier," she said as she slid the ersatz steak into the oven beneath the broiler elements.

"Over the computer?  How did that work?"

"The delay is a little irritating, but much better than typing e-mail back and forth---and much cheaper than the phone.  By the way, we have to find a way to pay Carl for the equipment."

"Doc's a good guy.  He likes you, so your smile is payment enough for him."

Not for me.  We will pay him."

"I could give him a life-time membership at the canoe rental," he suggested.

Mirabelle's hand suddenly shot out in an attempt to grasp Richard's moving lips.  "Hey, watch that, you little drip!"

"Richard, about that work you want to have done at the rental." she began, her tone one he had come to recognize as an attempt to soften the blow when she was about to tell him something he would rather not hear.

"Don't tell me we can't afford it," he said, his tone harsher than he intended.

"If you want to argue with the arithmetic, go right ahead.  All I'm telling you is that when I put a pencil to it---no, we cannot afford it---at least not now."

"If I'm going to get it up and running by the spring season, we have to make a few---well, they're not improvements.  They're necessary repairs.  Someone could fall through the rotten boards of that dock."

"I know," she said.  "But everything at once isn't possible.  The insurance, for example.  I had no idea it would be so much."

"If the agent ever comes down to look at the place, next year's premiums will go through the roof."

The canoe rental left her ambivalent.  On the one hand, she very much wanted him out of law enforcement, but starting a business would stretch their resources to the limits and put them into an uncomfortable amount of debt.  There would be no room for error or miscalculation.  Richard's optimism and enthusiasm, often in short supply, seemed boundless when it came to the rental.  He was so unlike her Aunt Mirabelle, the standard by which she had judged everyone since she was a child.  No one had ever stood that comparison well, including herself.  In the end she decided that she had no choice but to show confidence in him.  It would be difficult enough with them pulling together.  If they fought, they would have no chance.

"We'll manage," she said.  "But it will take some juggling."

"Maybe we can make a payment or two late---just a month or so," he suggested.

"No.  We'll cut back on discretionary spending.  I'll make our lunches for a start."

"It doesn't cost that much to eat out."

"Well, it will cost even less now because we won't do it."

He recognized the finality in her tone.

"I can do the carpentry work myself," he suggested.

"An excellent idea.  I'll help.  I know I can paint."

He nodded his agreement.  Pleased that she had been able to talk some sense into him, Jill was less than satisfied with the solution they had worked out.  Though she appreciated his confidence, it irritated her to make all the hard decisions.  As she turned the ersatz "steak," she wondered how her Aunt Mirabelle would have handled the situation.

Why couldn't such a wonderful woman find a man to appreciate her? she asked herself not for the first time.

The phone rang and Richard went to the living room to answer it.  She heard him mutter an acknowledgment and then walk into the bedroom instead of coming back to the kitchen.  Before he said a word, she knew she would eat alone again tonight.

"Got to make a quick run," he said, pulling on his jacket as he came to give her a quick hug.  "Domestic disturbance in Kaleville."

"Be careful."

"You know it," he said, pulling away after a quick peck on the cheek.  "I should be back in an hour or so."

 

As Richard topped the hill a jumble of houses came into view.  Most had once been white, though it had been years since most had last been painted.  They overspread a forlorn hill land carved into a facsimile of city blocks by eroded gravel roads.  Junk cars and assorted litter, ranging from dog trash to rusty major appliances and derelict cars, decorated the yards.  Here and there a non-conforming tenant kept his small plot neat and free from the common refuse in an effort to ameliorate the sad surroundings of his rented home.

A white trash rural slum, the collection of hovels was dignified by the name of Kaleville, as if it were a legitimate town.  It wasn't a town, only an unincorporated place as defined by the state constitution, but it was a de facto suburb of Blue Creek, the voters of which routinely rejected proposals for annexation.  Richard could hardly blame them.  What he couldn't understand was that the inhabitants of Kaleville itself shared the feeling.  Lacking both a tax base and the will to form one, the people lived packed together with neither a public water supply nor a central sewage disposal system.  Kaleville accounted for more than its share of criminal activity, mostly of the pathetic and stupid kind.  Police authority fell to the county sheriff.

By the time he got to the address, the incident, whatever it had been, was over.  No one was talking other than to say that the call had been a mistake.  No one would even admit making the call.  As he looked for a place to turn around, his pique was replaced with relief that he hadn't been forced to intervene in one of the interminable and irremediable dysfunctional family squabbles.  Policemen hate those because they never know in which direction the passion will explode, and their help is seldom appreciated or does any lasting good.

He took the narrow street south to the southern edge of the settlement where newer houses formed a subdivision of the shantytown.  Justin Hall, Hawthorn County's premier entrepreneur and slumlord, had taken advantage of low land prices to build a series of duplexes renting to the upper-lower strata, some of them group domiciles for college kids.  Twelve concrete block faux ranch style houses with neither garage nor carport clustered either side of a gravel cul-de-sac.  Richard used its circle drive as a turnaround.

Occupied with thoughts of cold supper and a dissatisfied wife, he tuned toward home, thinking that it seemed all he could do lately was disappoint Jill.  Maybe all that would stop when the canoe rental was up and running.  It probably would if he quit the department as Jill expected him to, but he wasn't sure he wanted to do that.

Just after he turned on U highway, he spotted another department cruiser going in the opposite direction.  As it passed he recognized it as Guidry's, and was surprised to see a young woman sitting in the passenger seat.  Glancing at the dash he noted the time.  Ron was off duty.  He'd have to remember to kid him about the girl in the morning.

 

The pungent stale smell lingered in the leather upholstery.  If he got stopped, it would get the car searched, not that they would find anything.  He'd had Jessie vacuum it thoroughly.  As Gary crossed the viaduct east of town he wondered how her dad would react if he noticed it. 

Like he'd have a clue!  He wouldn't have the heart to take the car from his little baby even if he did.  Bunch of hollering, and it would be over.

"Where we going?" asked Jessie, a note of hesitant petulance creeping into her voice.

"To see a guy."

"Why?"

The implicit criticism made him want to backhand her.

"I don't need this Jessie," he warned.

Cowed, the sixteen-year-old looked out the window as Gary bumped carelessly over the unpaved street.  She knew that he was deliberately mistreating her new car, but said nothing because she didn't want to make him angrier.  Most girls couldn't handle him, but she could.  He had a dangerous edge.  That and his take-charge style was what drew her to him.  Gary was intense, he was a smart---and he was hers.

The Camaro's tires cut noisily through the loose gravel of Kaleville Road.  Occasional dusk-to-dawn mercury vapor lamps provided by the rural electric cooperative served as hit and miss street lighting, their purplish spotlights accenting the hopelessness of the white trash slum. 

"Gonna score something?" she asked tentatively.

He placed a hand on her bare thigh, kneaded it softly, and then slid it upward beneath her short skirt, not as foreplay, but in a display of dominance.

"Stuff you like don't come from Walmart, Sugar."

Jessie didn't really want the pot buzz.  It made her feel unreal, and she didn't like that.  She did it to please Gary, and she wanted that desperately.  Her greatest fear was that he would leave her and go back to his wife, a real bitch of a woman who made his life a living hell.  Gary wouldn't have anything to do with her, but she had something he needed, his baby boy.  If not for his son, he'd have already divorced the selfish woman, but if he did the judge wouldn't even let him have visiting rights.  Someday though everything would be okay.  Gary would marry her and the little boy would have a real momma.

"Stay in the car," he said as he braked roughly to a stop in front of a dilapidated house with cardboard tacked over the lone front window.

When Gary got disappeared inside Jessie slid lower in the seat, hoping no one would notice her until he returned.  Although there was no discernible movement on the dark street, she suddenly knew that someone was watching, maybe sneaking up on the car.  It was a childish thought, and she wasn't a child any more.  Gary had proved that.  She locked the doors anyway and then nervously lit a cigarette.  The smoke did little to allay her jitters. 

A flash of yellow light, winked on and off before she could focus on it.  Then Gary stomped back toward the car.  She quickly unlocked the doors and he got in, slamming the door without saying a word.

"What's wrong," she asked timidly.

"Son of bitch raised his price on me!" he said nastily as if it was her fault.

He peeled out, sluing gravel and fishtailing wildly down the road.  Gary could neither be calmed nor talked out of his moods.  Once, he had even hit her, but not hard.  That had been her own fault because she hadn't understood the pressure he was under.  It just got to him sometimes, what with his old man interfering in his life and his wife threatening to get a court order keeping him from even seeing his son.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked suddenly.

"Nothing," she said weakly.

It was hard to find the right thing to say when he was like this. 

"No!  Hell no!  Nothing's ever wrong with you!  Whole damned world could fall apart and you wouldn't have a clue, would you?"

"Gary, I . . ."

"Shut up!  Let me think."

 

Dirty dishes had accumulated for over a week.  Along with half-eaten TV dinners and crusted potpie tins, the sour odor no longer confined itself to the kitchen.  Harold still might not have found the energy to wash them had he not run out of plates and space to stack the debris.  A gang of plump roaches dove for cover when he flicked on the light.  He got the job done quickly and then went to resupply. 

He came out of Barber's Cash jingling change, all that was left from his last paycheck after buying detergent and an air wick deodorizer.  Head down, musing dourly that he had no idea where next month's rent for the rat-hole was coming from, he trudged toward his car.  A nice looking girl, a coed or high school chick, stood near his car, arguing with a short, solidly built young man with dark hair.

"Gimme the keys and get in the damned car, Jess," said the man menacingly.

"All I was doing was---"

She finished with a squeal of protest as her companion lunged forward to grasp her wrist.  As she cried out in a mixture of pain and protest, he wrenched the keys from her.

Harold was near them now, having approached unnoticed.  He knew he should do something, but his prison instincts told him to slip past something that didn't concern him.  But he wasn't in prison anymore, and a man didn't do that.  A man would come to a girl's rescue, especially a hot chick like her.

"What's going on?" he said weakly, his voice too low to convey believable challenge.

"What's going on?" he repeated, a fraction louder.

Gary Kinder looked up, made an instant appraisal.

"Nothing that's any of your business."

Fishing for his role, Harold waded into the unwanted confrontation with a sinking feeling.  His parole officer had it out for him.  That was obvious from the job he'd made him take.  He was just looking for an excuse to send him back to prison.  Still, the girl needed his help.  It was what a man was supposed to do.

"Are you okay, Miss?" he asked.

Intentionally ignoring the man was the recipe for a fight.

"I told you this was none of your business!" shouted Kinder.

"Stop interfering," said the girl disdainfully.  "Just leave us alone, you old geek."

"Are you sure?" he stammered.  "I mean . . . I just---"

"Just go away," she said, leaning against the young man and looking at Harold like he was dirt.  "Who do you think you are anyway?"

"You heard her.  Now, get the hell out of here."

Defeated, not by the man's threats, but by the girl's betrayal, Harold hesitated.  His face burned and he felt like a fool.  He had blundered, and he didn't even understand how.

Kinder felt comfortable, good actually, now that Jessie had come around.

"I'll give you a pass this time, old man," he said with a sneer.  "Get in the car, Jessie.  Let's get out of here before I change my mind and stomp his face in."

Porter stared until the sound of the car had faded to silence.

That's what you get for trying to do the right thing, he thought bitterly.

It wouldn't wash.  He'd been made to look like a fool because he was one.  It's the way he always was around girls---the way they always were around him.

The kid had called him "old man."

 

Bright sunlight slit through the blinds, piercing his eyelids and tightening the band clamped around his head.  Gary groaned and turned away, wanting to go back to sleep.  Jessie shifted in response.  He looked at the clock.

After nine, he thought as he rolled back to his right and sat up.

He groped for cigarettes and then dragged his jeans from the floor to rummage for a lighter.

"Too damned early," he said as he drew smoke into his lungs.

He slapped the sleeping teenager's rump.

"Gotta get up, Jess.  Gonna be late for work."

Jessie sat up with a start; blinked at the clock, kicked free of the sheet, and scampered on child thin legs to the bathroom, tousling her short hair on the way.

Gary sat smoking while she brushed her teeth.

"Can you start my car?" she called out.

"Okay," he replied laconically.

Conversation was too much effort in the morning, and the domestic routine irritated him.

Beginning to sound like Brenda.  Not good, he thought.  Must be some kind of instinct.  They take pieces of your time, then pieces of your life.  Who needs that garbage?

She came out of the bathroom dressed in tan slacks, pulling on a knit shirt with a fast food logo over the pocket.  With her hair up, she looked all of thirteen.

"Did you start the car?" she asked.

"Guess I forgot," he said lazily.

"All you had to do was go out and---"

It was all she got out before he sprang forward, grabbed her by both shoulders and shoved her against the wall.

"Don't start, Jessie!  I don't need it!"

With clenched fists he waited for her to say something, do something that would give him an excuse.  He found himself hoping she would.

"I'm sorry," she said after a slight hesitation.

That she knew better than to start something gave him a small thrill of satisfaction.  He stared her down until she looked away, straightening her clothing, smoothing back her hair with downcast eyes.

"Well, let's go," she said finally.

Though he didn't know it, Gary preferred girls to women because they were easier to control, and he had to be in control.  He began having trouble with Brenda as soon as his son was born.  She began expecting stuff and demanding things.  She had no right to do that, and so he did the easy thing.  He walked.

 

When he stopped outside the restaurant, Jessie sat looking straight ahead instead of moving to get out.  As Gary waited for her to make some remark, he felt the tension build up inside.  He swore to himself he'd backhand her if she started again.  He had a headache.

"Could I have a little money?" She said finally.

Jessie had put off asking until the last minute because she knew it would upset him.

"I need to get a few things on the way home."

With only a slight tightening of his jaw, he said,  "How much?"

"Ten or fifteen dollars . . . maybe."

He pulled two fives from the small roll left from her last paycheck.  She took them without comment and got out.  Before she reached the door, Jessie heard squealing tires, and hoped she hadn't upset him too much.

 

Later that afternoon Gary Kinder drove aimlessly, occasionally gunning or sharply breaking Jessie Stoddard's car in frustration at his father's refusal.

A lecture instead of the money!  I need to make the deal, and the old man's got more than he can spend, but can he give any to help out his only son?  No.  Like he can take it with him!

There were other ways to get the money, but they all involved more work or more risk than he wanted.

I'll be able to buy and sell you some day.  Going to make it fat if I can ever catch a break.

"Not likely around this damned town," he said as he peeled away from another stop sign.

But Gary Kinder was a product of the damned town he so despised and he would never be comfortable in one much larger despite his grandiose dreams, dreams precluded both by his limited experience and his pitiful self-concept.  His facade of toughness sprang from a need to prove he wasn't as weak as he felt.  He needed Jessie's subservience to make himself feel bigger.  It was the same reason he was mistreating her car though he had none of his own to drive.

As he lurched onto the highway, the transmission slipped.

Good.  Tear up the damned thing and let Daddy buy her another one.  Won't let his little baby go without a car.

He hated Carl Stoddard's thinly veiled look of contempt whenever they met.

Bastard acts like I'm something he can't scrape off his shoes.

He smiled thinking about that.

Drives you crazy to think of me poking your little baby, doesn't it? he thought, never stopping to examine why he frequently imagined Jessie's father was in the room watching while they were having sex.

Gary Kinder wasn't dumb.  Though he had done little to develop a better than average mind, he was intuitive enough to take advantage of weakness whenever he encountered it.  He exploited his dad's paternal guilt and Jessie's adolescent rebellion proficiently.  Recognition of his own addiction to human weakness and what that meant, however, eluded him.  Like the typical sociopath, his considerable intuition failed when it came to understanding himself.  Whenever a picture of what he was really like threatened to break through, he subconsciously sprang away as one's hand flew away from contact with a hot object before the sensation of pain made its way to the brain.

Now, he shifted to a familiar daydream, a more satisfying one.

I get the money to invest in some meth to move locally---roll over the profits---let it build.  In a few months I got a bankroll big enough to get the hell out of here---move into St. Louis, Memphis, Chicago---make me some serious money.  Money!  That's what it's all about.  Money makes money and makes people pay attention.

Gary imagined himself as a drug lord.

Get me a crew of dealers and guys to do the grunt work, some muscle to keep ‘em all in line.  I'll concentrate on the thinking part of the business.  Cars, fine women, respect.

"Walter Mitty crap!" he said aloud.

Why in the hell did I ever read that damned story?  Stuff those old dried up bitch teachers love to force down a kid's throat.  Miserable losers always talking about the significance of a story!  I'll tell you the significance.  The guy was a loser because he didn't have the balls to go out and make it happen.  He wasn't like Gary Kinder.

Gary Kinder might have the balls, but he didn't have the money.

"Maybe I can fake it," he said as he turned into the drive.

Maybe I'll be able to blow enough smoke to get Marvin to advance the stuff on a short margin, he thought as he pulled to a stop.

A pair of pit bulls charged out menacingly, snarling, as they flanked the car.  Drooling strings of slobber, they growled and danced hyperactively in their eagerness to get at him.  Marvin Hendrichs came out and spoke harshly, calming them slightly.  When Gary got out, they sidled warily, obviously waiting for a command to tear into him.

"You got it?" asked Marvin, looking, not at him, but down toward the road as if he expected someone else to show.

"I'm working on it," said Gary, trying to make it sound like just a temporary snag.

Marvin exhaled noisily, clenching his jaw.

"Right!"

"I'll get it.  It's just . . . the old man's being stubborn.  No matter what he does though, I get the trust fund on my twenty-fifth birthday, which is like . . . in a couple of months.  In the meantime I can move the stuff---got me some good contacts."

The trust fund was a lie and the rest, gross exaggeration.  What he had was a few local users with little to spend.  The most reliable of them financed their habit by burglary.  Losers.  Not a one would hesitate to turn on him to save their own butts if they got caught, but if he was going to make it fat, he had to take a few chances.  Hendrichs didn't need to know any of that.

"Memphis, huh?"  Marvin made no effort to keep the skepticism from his voice.

"There and Poplar Bluff," he said, hating the lameness of his reply.

"Jerkwater town.  What's it got---ten thousand people?"

"Fifteen or twenty I think.  But I know some guys who can handle all the stuff we can supply."

Another lie.  He knew one guy who dealt to welfare losers in public housing on the east side, and he'd heard of a guy on the "hill," but that guy was black, and Gary would have as much of chance of dealing with him as he would of getting Donald Trump as a silent partner.  Memphis was pure fantasy.  One thing gave Gary hope.  Hendrichs had grandiose dreams of his own and was desperate to move more of his product without doing a face to face with the retailers.  He was looking for a good middleman, and Gary was working on convincing him that he could be that man.

Hendrich's silence, however, made him uncomfortable.

"How's production?"

It wasn't the sort of question you asked, but Hendrichs seemed to take no offense.

"Anhydrous is harder to find except for row croppers, so it's risky going that way.  Convert some of the bottomland, and I could cover my purchases, which is what I'll do in a bit.  Right now its ephedrine.  You can always get that, but not much at a time.  Same with ether.  Have to travel too much.  Could use some help there."

"I can help with that . . . you know . . . be real discreet . . . don't draw attention."

Hendrichs didn't answer, but Gary thought it a good sign that the man had begun talking about his business.  Instinctively he knew that the more he got the man to reveal about what he was doing, the more likely it would be that they could work together.  Maybe he could pull it off after all.

"I still can't believe you picked this up all on your own.  You never took chemistry or anything?"

"No.  You can get all the information you need off the Internet though---if you've got half a brain that is."

Despite his attempt at flippancy, Gary could see that Hendrichs was pleased with himself, eager to show off.  Now Gary felt more comfortable.  He was good at seduction, which was what flattery was all about.  Marvin wanted to be pumped up, and he could do that.

"I don't know," he said.  "There's always more to things than it seems like.  I'd be afraid to try something like that on my own."

"You kidding me?  Have you taken a look at the police reports?  The people they're busting for meth cooking look like they couldn't pour water out of boot if the instructions were written on the heel."

Gary wondered if the losers Hendrichs was talking about looked like that before or after a couple of years of sampling their own product.

"You buy something, Gary, or if you make something, don't ever go cheap.  That's false economy.  Quality is always worth the price."

"Uh-huh," he agreed, wondering what Hendrichs was getting at.

"Want to see a real lab?" said Hendrichs.

He had seen them before---kitchen cookers and rolling labs.  They stank, and he wasn't quite sure what the fumes did to your brain.  Using the stuff was for idiots, of course, but manufacturing wasn't a lot smarter.  He didn't want to see the lab, but the script didn't allow him to say so.

"Sure," he said after a moment.

"Come on."

Hendrichs led him past the house toward a red painted barn sitting on a clearing below.  As they went down the hill, the pit bulls trailed closely, not growling, but looking Gary directly in the eye whenever he glanced their way.  When they went through the double doorway into the open center aisle of the barn, Gary expected to encounter the sharp odor of ammonia or the cloying aroma of ether.  Instead the interior smelled only of seasoned hay and composted manure.  Dust motes floated in the shafts of autumn sunlight filtering through gaps in the rough oak siding. 

They walked to the rear entrance, passing rooms---he guessed they would be called stalls---stacked floor to ceiling with hay bales.  The one at the back left corner was almost empty, only a one bale thick sheath clad walls.  Its packed dirt floor was strewn with a litter of loose hay and straw.  There was no sign of a lab, and Gary suddenly became nervous.  Was it a trap?  Had Marvin been sampling his own wares too much and gone paranoid?  Was he going to pop a cap on him?

"Bet you can't find it."

"Gotta be in one of those rooms stacked with hay," he said nervously.  "Fake hay bales hide a door or something?"

Hendrich's smiled.

"That's what they'll think if they ever come snooping around out here, but all they'll get for it is sore backs from moving all the hay.  People are easy to fool, Gary.  It's the damned dogs you got to worry about.  They can smell the stuff a mile away.  Got that covered too, though.  Come on I'll show you."

 

The underground lab was impressive.  A whole semi-trailer had been converted to what Gary imagined a professional chemistry lab would look like, complete with a vapor hood over the workspace.  Glass and chrome plated equipment that looked vaguely familiar, though he didn't know what to call any of the stuff.  Overhead fluorescent tubes lit walls and ceiling covered with semi-glossy off-white four by eight sheets of bathroom paneling.  Everything sparkled, squared away neatly in its place.  It looked like a clean room for assembling high tech equipment.

"Pretty good, huh?"

"Amazing," agreed Gary, trying to calculate the size of Hendrich's investment in the lab.

"Took a hell of a long time.  Did all the work myself---pretty good with a backhoe.  Up top I poured a pad, so there's no way to tell this is down here or even that any digging ever went on," bragged Marvin.

"Of course, like I told you, it's the smell you got to worry about.  Know how I solved that little problem?"

Gary shook his head.  Even if he did know, he wouldn't spoil Marvin's fun.  The guy was trying to impress him, and that was good.  He decided to be impressed.

"Positive air flow," said Marvin, waiting for the expected request for clarification.

"What's that?" asked Gary on cue.

"Listen.  Hear that?"

A soft whir he hadn't noticed before whispered in the background.

"That fan you hear pulls a small but consistent amount of air through well concealed vents near the entrance and expels them some two hundred yards down in the woods into the lagoon.  Plenty of smell there, though I don't think anyone will be too tempted to look into it," he laughed.

"The vent comes through an activated charcoal filter and bubbles up out there around the aerator.  But just in case, I got me a propane tank hooked to fuel the generator down there.  In the line running to the engine of that thing, there's a pin hole that leaks just enough gas to cover any odor when the wind is real still."

"Well I'm impressed."

Marvin smiled, having received the expected and desired adulation.  Then his manner changed.

"Yeah," he said seriously.  "Well, I'd better be impressed with your ability to wholesale the product, Gary.  You get one thing clear.  You are a cutout.  No one you deal with can know anything about me.  And once we get going, you don't come out here no more."

"Then how---"

"How am I going to get the stuff to you?  It'll be taken care of."