Heads You Lose (16 page)

“Why would they be?” Paul replied.

“Merganser. Mallard. Ducks? Hello, Paul? Two corporations named after ducks—one is blackmailing a fake doctor—a quack. Get it? Paul, why don’t you care about this stuff? Don’t you want to know who killed Hart?”

“Sure, but only so I can steer clear of him.”

“But what about justice?” Lacey asked.

“Bartenders serve booze. Baristas make coffee. Doctors treat patients. Cops solve murders. Lawyers prosecute and defend. Judges and juries mete out justice. You and me, we grow weed to chill all those folks out. Let’s let everybody do their own job.”

“Don’t you want a better job?”

“I work with something I love and I get to make my own hours. I’m not sure how much better it can get.”

“And it’s illegal.”

“Sometime in the future we might go legit and grow for those compassion centers.”

“There’s no
we
in this future. I don’t know how you can settle for so little. I’m out as soon as I solve this murder.”

“You should just let this thing go, Lacey, and learn to live your life.”

“We can’t, Paul. Whoever killed Hart was sending us a message. I, for one, want to know what that message was. Why don’t you?”

“Because, Lacey, I’ve already translated that message. It reads, ‘Keep out of it and you’ll keep your head.’”

“You really are absolutely no help at all to this investigation. In fact, if you took a long vacation right now, I don’t think anyone would notice.”

“A long vacation sounds nice, Lace. Unfortunately, I can’t go anywhere because if I leave you alone, you’re likely to get yourself killed.”

Paul then pulled out the Purple People Eater, got massively stoned, and watched four episodes in a row of
Flowers of Evil,
²⁴
in which a borderline-sociopath horticulturist critiques the works of amateur suburban gardeners. The following morning, Lacey tossed the PPE in the neighbor’s trash and drove to work.

Lacey arrived an hour early at the Tarpit. She started the coffee brewing, took down the chairs, and used the office computer to type up and print a brief note to Doc Holland.

Dear “Doc,”

We have some unfinished business. Please contact me for a meeting at your earliest convenience.

Best Regards,
The Mallard

During the brief morning rush, Lacey got a much-needed respite from the investigation, which had been bouncing around in her head like a violent game of handball. Familiar faces smiled with either concern or satisfaction, asking about her well-being—some with genuine concern, others without. While coffee was poured and milk was steamed, Lacey gazed around the café, realizing how little Hart’s death mattered to anyone. Come to think of it, Hart had only started meaning something to her again after he died. She’d been close to forgetting all about him. What surprised her was that when the memories surfaced, they were usually the good ones. Maybe that was the best way to think of the dead.

When the morning patrons began to disperse, Lacey cleaned up her station and sat down at one of the tables for a short break. She stared into the distance until she spotted a familiar face entering the establishment.

“Doc Egan,” she said, getting to her feet and marching around the counter. “What can I get you?”

“Coffee, I guess.”

“You came to the right place. What kind?”

“Regular. Black.”

“Seriously?” Lacey asked.

“Yes.”

“Wow. That almost never happens anymore.”

Lacey poured the coffee and handed it to Egan, marveling at how simple an exchange it was. She served maybe one cup of straight coffee a day. It always lifted her spirits for some reason.

“Do you have a minute?” Egan asked.

Lacey’s eyes darted around the empty café. “I might have ten,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I had a very strange conversation with Terry Jakes yesterday.”

Lacey and the new doc sat at one of the back tables while Egan shared the details he could recall from his peculiar meeting with Terry.

“It didn’t make much sense,” Doc Egan said.

“Not much makes sense with Terry. But there’s usually a kernel of truth in there somewhere. Give me the bullet points.”

“He said something about one hand greasing the other. He knew about my side business, only I don’t have one. He promised to keep my secret. He called me the ‘New Falcon’ and he told me to say hello to the ‘Snowman.’ Does that mean something to you?”

“No,” Lacey replied. “I think it’s just more Terry nonsense. He hit his head when he was young.”

That was, of course, a lie. Not the head injury part, but the part about Lacey thinking it meant nothing. She wondered whether Terry was clued in to Doc Holland’s Mallard problem. Although she was grateful that there were no more duck references.

Egan finished his coffee and there was an awkward pause before he left.

“So next week, Lacey—do you think you might be able to take a break from crime-fighting?”

“Maybe,” Lacey replied. “I mean, if other people decide to chip in, who knows—we might have solved the mystery by then.”

After work, Lacey dropped by the Timberline, nodded a polite hello to Tate, and found Deena, Terry’s first ex, sitting at the last barstool.

“You doing all right?” Deena asked. She was sincere.

“I’m fine,” Lacey replied.

“Men,” Deena said. “Can’t live with ’em.”

She left it at that.

“I’m looking for Terry. You know where he is?”

“He came down from his perch for a couple days, but then he got spooked again and holed himself back up in his lookout tower.”

“Thanks,” Lacey said. “You got a message for him?”

“Yeah,” Deena replied. “Dry up,” she said, taking another sip of whiskey.

Lacey dropped her letter in the mailbox and headed out of Mercer to Terry’s hideaway. She parked her car on the fire road and hiked the last mile to the tower.

“Hey, Terry,” Lacey shouted.

She shouted his name again.

She approached the wooden ladder and shouted again.

“Wake up!” she said, banging on the bottom rungs.

From inside the lookout, Lacey heard some stirring and a groggy voice reply, “There ain’t nothing wrong with a grown man taking a nap.”

“Can I come up?” Lacey said.

“I’m indecent,” Terry replied.

“I’ll wait, then,” Lacey said, quickly striding away from the tower.

A moment passed and Terry poked his head out of the primitive window.

Terry smiled warmly. His nap must have quieted his demons for a spell.

“Miss Hansen,” Terry said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Just then an unnerving squeak pierced the forest. The entire tower seemed to buckle to the right. Lacey screamed Terry’s name and instinctively started toward the tower, then backed away. She could still see Terry’s surprised face in the window as the whole thing collapsed.

Lacey watched until all the debris had settled. She approached slowly, easily finding the bright red of Terry’s long johns among the planks. His neck was bent at an unnatural angle.

“Terry?” She said. His eyes were open, but there was no response. He stared directly into the sun.

Lacey checked her cell phone, but she knew there was no reception in these parts. She raced back to her car and started the engine. Leaving a plume of dust in her wake, Lacey drove a mile down the main highway until the cell towers kicked in. She called Sheriff Ed directly.

“Terry Jakes is dead.”

NOTES:

Dave,

Please accept my condolences for your beloved Terry. I assure you, it was a purely professional decision. It was time to raise the stakes in the story. And it was Terry’s time. He’s in a better place now.

With Terry gone, maybe “Paul” can refocus—or rather focus—his efforts on the investigation. I’ll admit that Terry grew on me in the end, but he was a terrible distraction.

All right, let’s let bygones be bygones and finish this damn book. What do you say?

Lisa

P.S. While I long ago developed an immunity to your conveyor belt of insults, I do think it would be wise to use that creative energy toward the book and not in belittling me.

Lisa,

This is how you kick off our detente—by killing my (and no doubt the reader’s) favorite character? If that’s the way it has to be, I can take this one for the team. Just let me know ahead of time if you’re planning to kill Paul next.

I admit I went a little overboard with the Dick and Jane stuff. Though I have to say it felt good to blow off some steam. You keep assuming I’m harboring resentments from the past. I can assure you that they’re all freshly minted. But I feel like I owe it to my surviving characters to see this project through. I’ll try to be less touchy if you try to moderate your hostility toward them.

Re: Paul, I’ve just been waiting for an organic point in the story for him to take an active role. Now that we’ve reached that point, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Dave

P.S. I take exception to the “unpublished” jab in your previous note. Hello?
Harper’s
, May 1996, page 32.

CHAPTER 16

The first Tuesday of every month was School Supplies Day—the day Paul drove down to the string of colleges a couple hours south of Mercer and distributed to his dealers there. He hadn’t heard whether Terry had talked to Doc Egan yet, but he doubted doing so would make things worse. Somehow, he always landed on his feet. “Like a cat,” Paul had once told him. “Or a puma,” Terry had replied.

On the highway down, Paul felt more relaxed than he had since they’d found Hart. The familiar anxiety of driving around with a pound of pungent marijuana under his seat was almost reassuring compared to the way things had been going around Mercer lately.

The college market made up the most reliable chunk of the Hansens’ customer base. There was plenty of competition, but also a giant, unwavering demand. Paul enjoyed that all these Tylers and Hunters and Masons were paying for his own kids’ college education—if he ever had kids, that is. And if those kids had Brandy’s genes, Paul thought, they’d probably need Ivy League money.

Over the next few hours Paul made a couple of transactions at smaller schools. The largest and last on his schedule was Sequoia State, Rafael Dupree’s domain—he lived just off campus. As always, they met at the Sickly Thistle, a pub near campus.

Finding Rafael in a back booth, Paul was about to shake his hand but pulled up dramatically at the last second. “Hey, how’s that rash?”

“Aw, man, don’t be like that. All cleared up. Question is, how are you? I heard about Hart,” Rafael said.

“I’m okay. Just trying to keep the doors open, you know?”

“How’s Lacey holding up?”

“Let me get back to you on that one,” said Paul. “Not sure she’s really processed it.”

“So, who do you think did it?” Rafael said.

“I have no idea. Not in a hurry to get one, either.”

“Right,” Rafael said, sounding not quite convinced. Then he offered his take on the suspect pool. “With somebody like Hart, it could be almost anyone. A recent business associate, someone from his Bakersfield days, back when he was doing business with gangs, a jealous husband, a jealous
sheriff
husband—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Paul said. “For now I’m just letting it unfold how it does.”

“That’s very stoic of you, Epictetus.” Rafael liked to show off what he’d picked up in the classes he was auditing.

“I got your epic teats right here,” said Paul. “Come on, man, just let me have my beer.”

“Yeah. Best to let bygones be bygones.”

“What does that mean?” Paul asked.

Raf shrugged. “Nothing, man, just that you can’t fix the past.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, shall we?” Paul said, motioning to the door.

They went out to his truck and made their standard transaction. Rafael left for a medieval philosophy lecture.

As much as he liked Rafael, Paul was glad to be free of him. An idea had occurred to him during their conversation. He took out his cell phone and noticed that the battery had died. He used the pay phone at the back of the pub to call Lacey’s cell. Her outgoing message came on immediately.

“Lace, it’s me,” Paul said, his voice quavering a little. “Hey, I just talked to Rafael. Listen: He says Hart was mixed up with a gang called Los Chungos from way back in the Bakersfield days. Apparently he was working off some money he owed them. I’m trusting that you’ll . . . register the seriousness of this and act accordingly. To summarize: Hart, Los Chungos. Spanish for ‘We kill nosy white girls.’ Okay? Be careful.”

Paul felt a little uneasy about using an honest guy like Rafael as part of the lie, but it was for a good cause.

It was shaping up to be a successful day for Paul’s top two imperatives: keeping Lacey and the business out of trouble. He decided to check out a little liberal arts school nearby where he didn’t have customers yet. He hung around the campus health food store, just getting a feel for the place—the same way he’d met Rafael a few years ago. Judging from the concentration of white dreads, it was a promising target. He’d ask Raf to check it out.

As Paul got on the highway to head back to Mercer, his focus on business as usual started to drift. He knew he’d pass the exit to the old family cabin halfway home. While he remained committed to steering clear of the Hart/Babalato mess as much as possible, he couldn’t forget what Big Marv had insinuated to Lacey about their parents’ death. He had to do something about it.

Paul could already see himself pulling off at the exit and, for the first time since before the accident, going to the cabin. If there
was
something to find, he wanted to find it before Lacey did. Given her recent behavior, she’d no doubt be snooping around soon enough.