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  Paul continued to wince and wheeze, holding his chest, face beet red with rage. Comb Over had usually stepped in by now, but given the circumstances, Paul Skaggs was out of his element. The lawyer’s anger made room for fear as Neil went to work kicking the fat little man about the torso, working the kidneys when Skaggs tried to roll away and cover. He got his voice back and began screaming for help. Neil bent over him and punched him in the mouth until he got the point.

  “You and Jenkins. What is it?”

  “The pharmacist? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Neil said, punching the man again, knuckles finding nose bone, breaking it easily.

  “It’s true. Oh, son, you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve got friends, friends who’ll bury you!” Skaggs choked on the blood, gagged.

  “Like him?” Neil said pointing to Comb Over, white as paper on the sofa. “Why’d you send him after me at the hospital? Why can’t I talk to the M.E.?”

  “Ha, because he’s dead. Had an opiate problem. Depressed. Shame. Drugs.”

  “A real shame.” He punched Skaggs again. “What’s with you and Jenkins?”

  “What’s with you and Jenkins? I told you. I don’t have any business with the man.”

  “Heidi says you do.” Neil cocked his fist again.

  Skaggs laughed. “Okay. I see. Heidi’s got you by the dick. What’d she promise you? Money? I’ll double what she’s paying you.”

  “She’s not paying me anything. And I don’t think she’s interested in my dick, or yours. Am I right?”

  “So you know the secret.”

  “Don’t know if I’d call it that. It’s doesn’t seem too hush hush.”

  “Maybe not, but the arrangement suits us.”

  “So what’s with you and Jenkins?”

  “Oh my god! You are a dense fuck! No wonder she’s chosen you.”

  “So you’re not going to talk to me?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about! You know my business! I’m a lawyer. I run drugs and whores through here. That’s it. Jenkins is, I don’t know! You’re here because Heidi fed you some gossip! She wants me gone! It’s business. You want to know about Jenkins? Ask Heidi!”

  Neil shook his head. “Now why did you do that? We could have avoided all of this if you’d been straight with me. Your wife is the same way. I guess I see the attraction, the initial attraction anyway.” Neil stood up. Comb Over lay on the couch, barely conscious, eyes glazed. “You think he’s going to remember any of this?”

  Skaggs sat up slightly, looked at his number one. “He don’t remember his own name right now.

  “Oxys? Thought you and Jenkins had no connection?”

  “Yes, fine. So I get pills from Heidi that she gets from the pharmacist. That’s the deal.”

  Neil pulled out his piece, pointed it at Skaggs.

  “Don’t don’t! I’ll tell you what I know. Jesus Christ I thought you were just some dumb fuck I didn’t know you were a crazy dumb fuck!”

  Neil pulled back the hammer.

  “We made the M.E. write it up as a suicide. He didn’t want to but we persuaded him, didn’t stick. He was going to squawk, especially if you came around so, there you go! Put that thing away!”

  “But why kill Hoon?”

  “That was Heidi’s deal. I don’t know why.”

  “The kids?”

  “Fuck if I know. I just cleaned up the mess. Jesus Christ. Get me to the hospital, huh? I think you ruptured something.”

  Neil looked down at Skaggs as the man began to sit slowly up. Neil lifted his boot and put it on the man’s throat, pushed him back to the floor.

  “That’s all?”

  Skaggs gasped. “I swear it is!”

  Neil lifted his boot and let the man breathe. Then he began to stomp. Skaggs fought for a minute but he didn’t have much fight to begin with. He only had his money and he soon learned that when it isn’t worth anything, it’s just a matter of time before you get your head caved in.

  Last thing to do was to put a hole in Comb Over’s jugular with Skaggs’ pen, a keepsake from the Law Offices of Paul Skaggs. Comb Over fought it less than Skaggs had. And when Neil put the pen in Skaggs’ hand, the man didn’t fight that one bit. Let the sheriff sort it out. One thing Neil knew about local law enforcement: if it looked one way, that’s probably the way it was. Saves on paperwork, anyway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Neil moved through the darkness, completely blind inside the cave, completely lost. He fumbled around in the black, found the wall easily but the chamber entrance was hidden from him, the front, sloped wall of the cave covered thick with chunks of fallen sandstone and much larger than he remembered. He slinked like a trapped weasel along the wall, east to west by his mind’s compass, dragging the bad leg over jagged rock that lit the wounded joint afire again and again. Something was very wrong and he understood somewhere behind the cold and the pain and the darkness, somewhere he didn’t really want to be but could see over the horizon, glowing, shimmering truth breaking up the clouds. He knew he was in trouble. He knew he needed to be very lucky. His thoughts turned to black and thunderous lies, they brought rain. He found himself crying, “help me” in his soul, but the pain did not strike his face. He didn’t know whom he was begging for aid. Neil stopped the stochastic movement, breathed and began the confident, deliberate movements of a man with plans. Again he moved side-to-side, patient. It would come. Across the wall, up, back the way he’d come, across the wall again, up, back. He would not admit he was on the wrong wall. Not to himself, not to anyone. He needed no help. He was alone.

  He followed the breath of the cave, came to a hole and told himself the tunnel was the one he remembered as he wiggled through its gaping mouth. He switched from belly crawl to knees as the circumference demanded. He felt he was sinking deeper, but couldn’t see it. He kept on through the tight curve he surely would have remembered. He sucked in his chest as the ceiling sloped quickly and he pressed himself through the narrowest passage so far. He pushed with tired legs and popped his torso through it. His hips were nearly through the same space when his hand toughed flat hard stone ahead and above and side-to-side, the end of the line. Neil felt again and again, tried to move forward but had nowhere to go. He rotated and found no room to turn around. He pushed backwards with a panic and his floating ribs caught the hard stone like the barbs of a fishhook. He pushed until his arms were on fire and his ribs begged to snap. The rock he pressed gave way and his hands found the shallow flow of a small cave stream running below. The water was cold and the sound was comforting, proof of space around him, but it was shallow, and the hole itself was just large enough to squeeze a forearm through. His fingers touched the water and the movement of the liquid over his fingers calmed him and deadened thought, the way it must be done when the mind’s dancing fire is capable only of maddening scenarios: starvation, skeleton remains. The water felt nice. The hours passed.

  Neil woke in his bed and realized it was still made of rock. He’d lost time, found only space and blackness. He began to hum for some noise. He pushed hard against rock and his chest ached. He focused all energy into the floor. If he could break it further, give him a few inches, just two, he would be free. Free to what? Free to be lost in the blackness.

  He was thirsty. His head hurt he was so thirsty. How long? How long? The pain pushed him outside of his head, made him feel his situation. He tried to move his bad foot and found the scraping pain still too much. His hand felt the cool stream and his fingertips brushed the bottom. He curled his hand into a cup, let it fill, and brought the water to his mouth, losing much of it and returning his hand to the water again and again, delaying all thought. He removed his hand from the hole and sucked his fingers until they were warm with blood. He felt the wall for crickets but found none.

  He played a game to pass the time. He pretended he heard voices calling his name. He imagined he was found until he was able to convince himself h
e was. This was when he was able to settle into a panicked sleep. He was hungry. He screamed for help because if he could hear them, they could surely hear him.

  He felt around in his hole. He touched the water with mouth-warmed fingers. His fingers walked the bottom of the shallow stream and began feeling again. He pressed his pointer into the structure and felt organic life. He pressed hard and felt a quickly dead sting. He pulled his hand from the hole and felt the crayfish still dangling from the finger with its pale pincher. He knew the white color without seeing it. It was perfectly white, spared of unnecessary pigments. He put the entire mass into his mouth, he chewed and gagged on the dead thing he was eventually able to force down. After the heaving subsided, he tried to ignore his intestinal discomfort with sleep. He remembered a hunting trip with his daddy. They’d not found a single squirrel all morning and Daddy claimed the animals knew them, that their reputations as squirrel killers preceded them. Neil’s head ached from the cold air and hunger. He ignored it.

  It had rained for a long time, water seeping through the infinite channels within the rock. He could barely feel the drips anymore, but the patter was maddening. There were no more crayfish, only a few stray crickets, which were more palatable anyway. He saved the legs and outlined city streets in the dark. It was clear in his mind but the result was unknown. If he built a place for them, more would come. He remembered a song about a bug city, much like Vegas, a party town for the crawling things of the brush and dirt. He envied the crickets as he planned and erected pebble temples blindly. He built and rebuilt. If they came he could stay here forever. Building had been smooth until the rain and the tiny streams washed away the streets. He dipped his hand into the hole and realized the water was rising. He wondered how high it would rise, and what force it was that had created his tunnel. He listened to the drips, tried to feel them on his face.

  He dreamed of blackness for the first time. He went through his routine. There were no crayfish in his trap. He reached in the water and was grasping a tail, a fish tail, a tail too large for the cave. He pulled but the fish swam hard with the current. He gripped the tail with a cramped hand. He stopped fighting the fish. He could not let go—his hand felt it belonged to the fish. It pulled him, yanked his shoulder, ripped the joint apart. He began pounding at the floor of the tunnel, like the day he’d created the fishing hole. His hand bled warm as he pounded his hard fist into acid weakened rock. When the pain was too much, he thrust his open palm. The fish continued to pull and then he was no longer aware of sleep or dreams or awakenings. He felt the rocks start to give. He heard the tinny splashes. He pounded the rock harder, fevered until at last there was a small collapse. He yanked his body forward and down and the relief of a free body and moving hips stung, a deadly euphoria. He belly crawled through the water, free to progress to the further unknown. He became aware of the down slope and the rising of the water. He turned his head to the side for air and pressed on. He thought about the fish, no longer in his hand but up ahead. He would find it. He did not know who would kill whom. Neil rolled to his back, nose scraping the ceiling; he floated. He took in tiny misty drops with his breath. He coughed and moved until the tunnel tapered further and left him unable to pass, unable to fish. He screamed and took in water. He coughed. His nose scraped the ceiling for air. He thrashed and kicked and saw a tiny light. He reached for it. He reached to the rocks and then through them. He watched the light grow. He felt a glorious pain in his eyes. He felt wind drying his face.

  Neil sat up, legs still submerged within the stone casket. He pulled them free and rolled out. Senses crazy from deprivation, he tasted the sun; it warmed him and continued to stab his eyes. He choked and shrieked, a foul thing born of the earth and unsure of the place he was spit out, the sounds and flashes of movement in the trees, the crunching death of last year underneath a writhing, stretched form. A hairy skunk ape. A beast of the dust.

  He surged ahead, gazing upward, trees and sky above trying to become distinct, to drown the fuzzy black memory of the cave in sunlight. There were no words, only his innate drive. He could put some pressure on the bad ankle and did, the pain motivated him and he loved it, this feeling he created by will. He pulled himself along, grabbing at the sap sticky pines and oak saplings. He had no clue where he was, needed higher ground. He scrambled to the top of the hill and looked into the holler below. The opposite side sloped up and he saw the road, the road he’d been spit out upon time and again, the road that held back everything wicked in the woods.

  He took to the down slope tentatively, afraid his relief was an illusion he’d created in the blackness of the cave. He waded through the saplings and briar, over ferns and moss. Neil forced himself up the hill again and broke through the canopy to the clearing with a final thrust of power, up and over a five-foot rock stand. He crashed upon the grass of the manmade, concrete topped knoll. The white sky was a bright blanket of pain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Neil lay on his bed, coming down from whatever Heidi had given him, or from whatever it was he’d given himself, allowing him to give into the old way. His head ached and the last thing he wanted was company, but the knock came and he dragged himself to the door.

  Helen stood outside; she wore a white cotton dress dotted with yellow stitched flowers. The straps hung on her tanned shoulders like the arms of a loving child, a perfect union of dependence and unconditional acceptance. Neil remembered the county fair from years back, the parade that preceded it, beginning in the town square and leading the masses to the fairgrounds. Neil was standing on the side of the road, watching the floats with as much community pride as he could muster. Helen was named Celery Queen that year and that’s what her parade-wear resembled, the slim green dress flaring slightly at her feet, and hugging her curves as it went up, her hair done up and adorned with matching green ribbons that cascaded from pinned curls. Instead of a bouquet she held a bunch of celery. She waved as the number two and three beauties flanked her, their smiles barely hiding the bitter acceptance of the result they foresaw the day they entered the pageant. Jenkins the elder was there too, pulling the float with a John Deere, flannelled, in overalls with a straw hat, playing the part of the farmer and looking back often at his lovely girl, the prize he’d raised up from seed.

  “You going to let me in or just stare all night?” Helen said. Neil stepped aside and she entered. She sat on the end of his bed and kicked off her flats, spread her long toes and kneaded the carpet with the balls of her feet like a cat.

  “I still don’t know who’s responsible,” Neil said. “I’ve got my suspicions, but nothing to go on.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “The only one I can come up with is your daddy. But to kill Hoon because you were taking up with him seems a stretch.”

  “I told you. He’s more than he lets on. He’s a bad man, Neil. A bad man.”

  “What’s your share of the business?”

  “Mama left me her half. He’s got to buy me out if I say so, or I can sell to someone else. Or I can stay on and run it with him. He don’t want any of that, wants it all for himself. He hates Mama for dying.”

  “For killing herself.”

  Helen looked at him and for a moment he thought she was going to jump up and bite him, inject all the venom she had, but her face softened and she looked into his eyes. “Your mama’s dead, huh? Daddy too?”

  “Yep.”

  “Daddy killed hisself?”

  “Shot himself in the head.”

  “Leave you anything?”

  “Some social security, but my uncle moved in to raise me, he drank most of it up. Got a trust when I turned eighteen. That just kind of floated away.”

  Neil expected her to say something about how sad his tale was, but she remained quiet. She reached into her bag and pulled out some bills. “Here’s four hundred,” she said. Neil hesitated and then took the money.

  “I’ll find out who did it. I’ll find them.”

  Helen lay back o
n the bed, her dress rising up her thighs, a red heart tattoo on the inside of her left leg, initials inside: H + H.

  “Hoon and Helen?” Neil said. Helen looked at him, confused, followed his eyes down her body and to the tattoo. “Oh, yeah. We were so drunk. I always said I was never getting a tattoo, but love I guess. You got any tattoos?”

  “I got one,” Neil said.

  “Can I see it?” Helen asked, sitting up. Her dress bunched at the waist, she didn’t pull the hem back into place. Neil pulled off his t-shirt, he was scarred up and down the torso, memories of road rash and knife fights. Over his heart was his own heart tattoo, not a valentine but a four-chambered, fist-sized, human heart, drawn out of an anatomy textbook. Inside was written, ‘Rinthy’.

  “What’s a Rinthy?” Helen asked.

  “She’s a person.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She was my girl. She’s dead too.”

  “Seems like for both of us, the people we love end up dyin’,” Helen said. She lay back on the bed again, looked at Neil and smiled, white teeth and lips glistening. Her hand traveled from her cheek down her neck and the length of her torso, pausing at a breast before continuing over her stomach, beyond the cover of the dress and to her thigh. She stroked her tattoo with a manicured nail. “I feel like dyin’,” she said. “You feel like dyin’ with me?”

  He looked the girl up and down; truly she was given the only name to suit her. She was the kind of perfection only a sick artist can dream up, an imagined perfection that leaves reality in a fog that the sun can never burn off. “Sometimes,” he said and held up the handful of cash. “But not until I earn this money.”