Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (42 page)

“You’re a quick study,” Kain told him, again taking up in the swing.

“Lee was right. You teach pretty good. A few guys on the Tigers could use your help. Stu Bergman, for one.”

“That boy throws way too hard. Good fastball. But he won’t last. Jimmy Long’s good. Real smooth delivery.”

“I guess. He … never mind.”

“What …”

“He can be a real pain sometimes. You know?”

“He jokes around.”

“Yeah, jokes around like an idiot.”

“You don’t like him.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t.”

“Do you like
me?
”

“What?”

“Do you like …
me.
”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“You didn’t at first. Maybe you still don’t. But at least you’re not swinging a bat at me anymore.”

~

“I
get
it,” Ryan said, after a drink. “I got to know you. A little, anyway.”

“You and Jimmy could be real friends.”

“Friends? Are you kidding? My old man would—”

“What.”

“Nothing.”

“Your father would what?”

“You don’t know him, Kain.”

“I know enough. Enough to know that you don’t have to be afraid of him. Afraid of your
self.
”

Again. That odd mix of fear and expectation in the boy’s eyes. Want and wary.

“Pitch
to
it,” Kain said.

~

They sat for a time, the conversation lighter, the bold sun beginning its long westward journey. Kain finished his second glass of lemonade, and then asked the young pitcher if he wanted more practice with his change-up.

“In a minute,” Ryan said. Suddenly, his demeanor had become quite sullen. “I want to ask you something.”

Kain had already gotten up. He sat. He considered how they were getting along; he wouldn’t call them friends, exactly, but they weren’t strangers anymore, either. For now, they seemed to be drifting in that gray area in between, feeling each other out like two prize fighters who have never faced the other before. It was something. Perhaps trust
could
be built on a baseball.

Ryan just came out with it, a flash flood. Simply told him the straight goods about Henry Roberts. About what the man had done to Billy Kingston and his little brother, Johnny. About the damning letter from his friend, how it was inside a strongbox and buried in the barn. How he had blackmailed the greasy sonofabitch. That’s what Ryan had called the old barkeep. A greasy sonofabitch.

“I’d have him locked up,” Kain told him, when Ryan had asked what he’d do. Since he’d met the man, he had always felt Henry Roberts a strange bird, but this?

“I can’t go to the cops,” Ryan said, and went on to explain how
Sheriff
Roberts was Henry’s brother … and how just last week he had asked Ben to help him burn down the Wild. It was Bullshit Benny—rather, the serious side of Benjamin Caldwell—who had, despite having been more than slightly inebriate at the time, talked some solid horse sense into him.

“I think you know what you have to do,” Kain said.

“Billy’s dad.”

“You have to give him the letter.”

“It’ll kill him, Kain. After Billy drowned himself … it wasn’t long before his mom committed suicide. All the man has left is Johnny. I don’t know if he could live with this.” He paused. “I haven’t.”

“He’ll have to. The man has a right to know.”

Ryan’s expression fell. But then, after a long deliberation, his eyes grew brighter.

“I will. I’m gonna do it.”

“It’s the right thing to do.” Kain started to rise.

“Wait,” Ryan said. “Sit. Please.”

Kain did.

“Ma would never tell you,” he went on. “It’s too hard. I just wish somebody knew, you know? Somebody besides us.”

“Ryan … whatever it is … if she wanted to tell me, she would have. It’s not my business. You’d better think about this.”

“
No.
”

“… Are you sure?”

“No. But I need to do this. Before I lose the nerve.”

“All right.”

The boy stiffened; he had all the color of a leaden November sky. “You ever wonder about my sister? Why she dresses the way she does?”

“I know about the burns,” Kain said. “Your mom told me there was a fire.”

Ryan shook his head. It was more an act of disgust than disagreement. His gaze fell.

“There was no fire.”

~ 17

Frank Wright stood at the curb, outside Milton’s Hardware & Grocery. He’d been making puppies for the last half hour, leaning far more on the broom than into it, taking his sweet time to do what should have taken him five minutes. He gave the old man the finger. The old man never saw it, of course, never saw a fucking thing; he was almost as blind as he was stupid, as useless as that fleshy stump at the end of his arm. What did it matter if he missed a spot? It was a fucking sidewalk, for Chrissake. A goddamn sidewalk. If he weren’t so strapped—Jake owed him twenty, but he was into Ray for almost two hundred, not a situation he felt would be conducive to walking (or worse) much longer—he’d take the man’s precious broom and shove it right up his ass. Let the sonofabitch tell his customers
that
war story. Better that than that goddamn shit about how his hand got blown off. Jesus, if he heard that crap one more time he’d have to beat the old fuck to death. And when they came to sweep up what was left of the old bastard, wouldn’t he tell
them
not to miss a spot.

The old man stood akimbo in the doorway, towering at the top of the steps. He had snow-white brows, thick as weeds, over beady little eyes on a furrowed little face. He looked just like the idiot Frank always thought he was, what with his green-striped shirt and red suspenders, his dark gray pants riding nearly as high as the pants on that other idiot, Sid Plummer. The bastard let out a fart, a soft squealer, then made yet another joke about eating too many field mice. He scratched his crotch as casually as he might hand you a pack of smokes across the counter, and then, without further ado, fingered something from his teeth, toyed with it a bit, grumbled about the heat (he never shut up about
that
particular subject, Jesus), and finally hobbled back inside.

Frank coughed. It came hard and sharp and phlegmy. It hurt like a bastard today. Like a knife. Doc Wheatley wanted him to quit, told him just last month when he went in for another of those killer nosebleeds. He was getting at least two a month now, and sometimes they went on for hours. But what the fuck did that quack know?
He
smoked, a regular goddamn chimney. The sonofabitch even sucked ’em back while he checked you over, for Chrissake. It was a wonder he didn’t blow smoke right up your ass.

He lit up and took a long, soothing drag. Two left. Shit. He still had half a shift. He’d have to lift a pack when the old man went for a dump. Assuming the idiot hadn’t counted them all first. The guy was really getting stupid lately, going on about how people were stealing from him. Cash from the till. Smokes. Sure, he took a pack now and then, but cash? Okay, he did the once, but that was it, about a year ago. Old bastard was losing his marbles. Probably the goddamn heat. The radio said it was supposed to break, but Christ, they were playing that old song back in May.

He shaded his eyes and squinted into the cloudless sky. The sun stroked his weathered, off-colored skin (he’d had jaundice as a newborn, and his color had never quite recovered, had always held a slight tinge that wasn’t quite green, wasn’t quite yellow … just
off,
as some kid had once told him; he had also suffered a spell ten years back, but that had cleared up, thank God, although that first time he’d looked down and spotted that tea-colored piss in one of the Wild’s urinals, he had damn near shit himself). The heat was brutal. He heard it was cooler out west, especially in northern California, and that’s where he was going, just as soon as he got the cash. Soon as that bitch wife got that inheritance she was supposed to, like that big city lawyer from New York had told her. Her sister had snared some rich sonofabitch two years ago, some car dealer from Automobile Row, and damn if they didn’t drive one of his fancy Chrysler 300’s off a bridge six months ago. Fifty feet down … three grand
up.
Three G’s would get him—and only him, no bitch wife and no pain-in-the-ass kids allowed on
this
gravy train—out there in style. Yeah. I-80. Keep on ‘til he hit the coast. Eureka. He even liked the name. That idiot cousin Ronnie was there, no kids, just him and that hot little wife, Rhonda. Ronnie could never shut up about how cool it was, how sunny it was, how blue the Pacific was, how just plain nice it was all the time. Hell, Ronnie even told him how Eureka was Greek (or was it Italian? he could never remember) for
I have found it,
or something like that. And didn’t he say it was some kind of motto out there? Californians. Go figger. And what about that Rhonda? Well, didn’t
she
just bounce about the juiciest pair of jigglies west of the Mississippi. He’d had her more than a few times, when Ronnie used to work swing out at the rail yards, and sure as shit he’d like to find
those
jigglies jiggling in his face again. Eureka.

He coughed a fit. That sharp pang sliced across his chest. His lungs burned, achingly thick with the filth inside of him. The cigarette slipped from his thin, crooked lips. He almost nabbed it, but the lip. Fucking thing. If only he’d hit the grass instead of the pavement way back when. Six fucking inches.
Six.
Fucking cheap-shit bike. Doc was a whole lot younger then, a whole lot steadier, had wired him up with thirty-seven stitches. But he’d screwed up, the sonofabitch, had sewn him up too tight, at least that’s what his old man had told him, and his upper lip had never healed right. Never closed right. Girls had always laughed at him. Still did. Could always see his teeth. What was left of them, that was, all chipped to shit they way they were. And rotten. Like bad meat.

Speaking of which, Doc was telling him he should be eating better, too. Pack on some beef. He was one-thirty-two, down a good twelve pounds from last month, but lately, he just couldn’t keep stuff down. Not that he had much of an appetite these days, but he couldn’t taste a whole lot when he did eat; meat tasted like the paper it came in, and beer, well, the old suds held about as much flavor as kissing Myrna. Flat. Even his smokes (and he liked them pretty much more than anything, except for maybe a nice pair of jigglies) were starting to taste like a mouthful of cow shit. Still, he reached down and picked up the precious smoke, blew the dirt off it and stuck it between his lips. He held it as he stifled another cough. He fell into another rough bout, then horked up something nasty. Something lime-green and slick. He swept it into a dirty slimeball and over the curb.

He looked up and down the street. For a Saturday afternoon, things were dead as a doornail. A couple kids riding bikes. A few parked cars. An old gray tom. He was about to go in, see if the old bastard was out back pinching a loaf, when a big Chev wagon turned the corner. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered with it, but it stopped short when the tom scooted right out front. The driver waited for it to scamper off and then carried on. The Chev pulled up on the opposite side of the street, and when he realized just who it was behind the wheel, he felt another burning ache. Not in his chest, but in his shorts.

Ray’s wife. Driving Al Hembruff’s wagon. Right. After what happened to Ray’s old pickup.

She opened the door, and his cock stirred. She had on a plain summer dress that, when she got out, revealed a perfect pair of legs. Her hair was down, flowing along her shoulders. Her eyes were bright. She had a great pair of jigglies, too, almost as nice as Ronnie’s bitch. Ray had fucked it all up with her, of course, but if she was his woman, instead of that dumb bitch
he
knocked up (the last, another boy, died in childbirth, God blessum, keeping him hog-tied with just five of the ungrateful fuckers), he’d be porking this one six ways from Sunday. Oh yeah. He’d treat her right. Not like that crazy fuck, Bishop.

She saw him staring, and he went back to his all-important task. Sweeping slowly and mechanically, the bristles barely touching the pavement, he followed her from the corner of his eye as she crossed. She stepped up on the curb, and as she passed him and made it up the steps into the open doorway of the store, she stopped and turned.

“If you want to look at my ass, Frank, do it in your dreams.” She went inside.

Fucking bitch. Oh yeah. Six ways from Sunday.

He heard the proprietor welcome her with that tired cackle of his, heard him going on about the heat. The old fart said he heard what had happened, how everyone was still on about it, how it was one helluva thing, why, he knew all about explosions, don’tcha know, did I ever tell you what happened in the Ardennes, lend an ear, child, lend an ear. It went on for over twenty grueling minutes, long enough for that half-breed to come cruising up the street in his half-breed pickup. The dusty vehicle, a jade, rust-bucket ’46 Mercury on four bare wheels and missing a headlamp, pulled up on the store side of the street.

Kid had some fucking nerve coming into town. Brass fucking cojones. Either that, and this made a helluva lot more sense, the kid was just as dumb as a stump, just as thick as his old man. Too stupid to accept what was right as rain.

The kid got out. He was a whole lot taller than the last time he saw him. Whole lot bigger. Fucking half-breed, probably been eating horseshit for breakfast. It was spooky. He looked just like his old man, mostly, anyway, except for the white in him. The good part. Same dark hair. Same narrow eyes. Eyes you couldn’t trust wouldn’t knife you in the back if you weren’t careful.

The kid saw him, and he welcomed him with a
What the fuck YOU lookin’ at?
look. Kid didn’t flinch.

He went back to his half-hearted broom-work. Kept an eye on him. Safer that way.

The kid started round the front of the pickup, but something caught his eye. He looked like he had something on his mind—the cocky sonofabitch gave
him
a look—and just when he thought the kid was going to lay some smartass remark on him—just try it, you little cocksucker, just fucking try it—he turned, stepped across the street, and rounded the passenger side of the Chev. What the fuck?