Bad Things (43 page)

army. I lost track of all these people until I got back, and never be-

came close after that—because I was spending most of my time down

in Yakima again working my ass off.”

316 Michael Marshall

“But?”

He shrugged. “I’ve heard stuff, over the years. You know how it

goes.”

I did. Snippets, tangential information. Things that bore no di-

rect relevance to the case you were working, muttered by the guilty

as mitigation or misinformation or time-fi llers, and that collect like

dust in the far recesses of your head.

“And what did you hear?”

“That there were people who you could go to if you had a prob-

lem, or a need. That things could be done, sometimes, people could

be made to do stuff. I didn’t take it seriously. You know how small

towns are. It’s like staying in high school your whole life. A lot of

people talking a lot of bullshit. Walking the same halls, using the

same locker room and cafeteria. People build their own little spooky

stories out of nothing, right? Join the dots?”

“I’m not sure that’s all this is. And you said yourself that people

whispered things about Brooke a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “And actually I talked to Jenny about that

this afternoon.”

“You did?”

“After you left, I thought shit, call and see how the woman is.

We got onto the Robertsons because I mentioned Ellen was having

problems—she and Jenny had got to know each other a little, it turns

out—and we didn’t really get into it, but I received the impression

there was more to that story about Brooke and the teacher than I ever

got to hear.”

Brooke’s ancient history was not something I cared about at that

moment, and I suddenly remembered other things that might be hap-

pening in the world. “I need to use your phone.”

“Sure,” he said, heading out of the room. “I’ll fi nd you a dry shirt,

too.”

“Another thing,” I told his back. “I tried to talk to the sheriff after

I got away from these people. Whoever answered hung up on me.”

B A D T H I N G S 317

“Huh,” he said.

I couldn’t remember Becki’s cell-phone number, even after nu-

merous tries that landed me in dead ends or irritable wrong numbers

and a conversation where neither I nor the person on the other end

appeared able to hear the other. My head was throbbing badly now. I

took a look through the kitchen drawers and eventually turned up a

bottle of Advil. I took four.

Bill came back with a gray sweatshirt that you could have squeezed

two of me into. I couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I’m built for comfort these days. But it’s

dry and has no bullet holes and is not covered in blood. Your call, Mr.

Armani.”

As I was reaching out for it I had another idea, and called direc-

tory assistance for the number of the Mountain View. The bartender

guy answered and put me through to Kristina quickly enough.

“Where the hell
are
you?” she said. There was a strong crackle on

this line, too. “Are you okay?”

“I need you to do me a big favor.”

“Okay, but—”

“Friend of mine, that girl who arrived in the car last night?

She’s—”

“Right here,” Kristina said.

“What?”

“But it’s complicated.”

“How—” I started, but she was gone, and another voice came on

the line.

“Been calling you,” it said angrily. “You ain’t fucking answer.”

“I lost my phone. Who is this?”

“Little D. We got your boy.”

“Shit,” I said. “Look—”

“No,
you
listen. Only reason we ain’t long gone with the job done

is your woman.”

“What woman? I don’t have a woman.”

318 Michael Marshall

“Skinny bitch here with the black hair.”

“She’s not . . . look, okay, what?”

The timbre of the man’s voice changed, as if he’d turned away

from the others and brought his face closer to the phone.

“Listen, yo. We fi nd your boy on the street and we’re on the way

to do the thing, when we see his girl. The blond one. Switch pulls

over, gets out to grab her, do two for one and make it all clean. That’s

how he be. But she’s with your woman here, and the tall girl just

looks at Switch like he’s a little ’un and starts talking. Switch don’t

listen to
nobody
once he’s started, but now . . . now he got some whole other idea from her.”

“Which is?”

“We ain’t whack your boy yet.”

“Thank—”

“But we double on the price. Because now we got him in the

hand, yo.”

For a second I considered telling the guy to fuck himself, and his

friend, and to fuck Kyle while he was at it.

Then I caught Bill’s eye, and realized what was playing on the

stereo in the living room. An old Creedence song, “Have You Ever

Seen the Rain?” One of the tracks Bill always used to play on his Walkman in the bad old days, another little joke about his name. And

off the back of that, and fl ash memories of those times, I had another

thought entirely.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Deal. But I have a better one if you want

to hear it.”

“What is?”

“I’ve got another problem right now, and I need some soldiers.

Tonight. Twenty-fi ve each.”

“You
shitting
me?”

The anger or fear bubbled up out of me. “Do I sound like I am?

When you’re already holding two friends of mine? You met me. Did

I
look
like someone who fucks around?”

B A D T H I N G S 319

“Wait up,” he said.

The line went muffl ed for a full thirty seconds. Bill looked at me

with a raised eyebrow.

A different voice came on the line. The matter had evidently been

handed up the ladder.

“Fifty between us?”

“Yes.”

“Up front.”

“Can’t be. You think I’m holding that much right now?”

“Up front or no deal.”

“Have it your way, asshole. You
do
this, you get paid what I just

said. You don’t, you can drop the little shithead right there in the bar

and I don’t give a fuck.”

There was silence, then a chuckle. “You a cold motherfucker.”

“That a yes?”

“Where you at?”

I told him and asked to be put back to Kristina.

“What have you just done?” she asked.

“Somebody killed Ellen.”

“I know. Becki told me.”

“You sound pretty calm about it.” She didn’t say anything, so

I went on. “They’ve got Carol and Tyler, and the sheriff’s depart-

ment hung up on me half an hour ago. I cannot see anyone except the

Robertsons being behind this, and I am done being fucked with by

that family.”

“John . . .”

“What?”

“You’d do better to walk away.”

“Are you
listening
, Kristina? Someone shot me. They’ve got Carol

and my kid and I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”

“They’re going to die.”

I was speechless. Then suddenly I remembered what Kristina had

said, when I told her what happened to Scott.
I’m so sorry
. It had struck 320 Michael Marshall

me at the time but I hadn’t known why. I’d chosen to believe that she’d

selected that particular form of words because she was feeling close

to me.

Perhaps instead it had been because. . .

“Did you
know
about this?”

“I do now.”

“About what happened to Scott?”

“Not when you told me.”

“But what do you know about it
now
?”

“John, I think you’re too late.”

“Is there anything you can do to help me?”

“What’s going to happen is going to happen. It was started a long

time ago. I can’t—”

“Then good-bye.”

“Joh—”

I put the phone down. Tried to catch up with what Kristina had

just said but couldn’t get near understanding any of it and so closed

the door on it in my head.

Instead I looked at Bill, who was leaning against the table with

his arms folded. I felt dry and wired and like everything was getting

away from me.

“We’ve got additional numbers coming.”

“I gather. Who?”

“Couple of gangbangers who were supposed to be whacking

someone I know.”

“Great. They sound nice. Then what?”

“We’re going to go fi nd Carol and Tyler,” I said, putting my head

in my hands. Most of all I felt exhausted, as if the earth was trying to

pull my body and soul down into it to lie still forever. “And if anyone

gets in our way, we’re going to fuck up their shit.”

“That the whole plan?”

“Pretty much.”

B A D T H I N G S 321

“Okay,” I said, ten minutes later. “So when were you actually plan-

ning on taking the government by force?”

He’d laid out what he had in the guest bedroom. A Glock, a couple

of Beretta 92s, a shotgun, and a serious hunting rifl e, plus enough

bullets to make a lot of big holes in many things.

Bill shrugged. “You complaining?”

I took one of the Berettas because it was what we’d had back in

the day and I was used to holding one, plus the shotgun, and went

downstairs to load up on the kitchen table. Both guns were good and

clean. I tried not to imagine Bill sitting here at some point in the last

few months, gun in his hand and thinking about me and Jenny, and

largely succeeded.

When that was done I fi nally took my shirt off and grabbed a

towel.

There was a knock on the door.

Bill quickly reappeared down the staircase, looked at me with a

question mark. I pointed toward the front door, grabbed the handgun

off the table, and slipped through into the living room, where I could

get an angle on the hallway.

After a moment I heard Bill open the door.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Looking for John. He here?”

“You Little D?”

“Switch.”

“Yeah, he’s here.”

I heard feet go down the steps outside, and then a group return-

ing back up them. I stepped out into the corridor as four people en-

tered in line.

The two black guys, with Becki and Kyle between them. I’d

known Kristina wouldn’t be with them but for some reason it still

hurt.

Becki ran straight over and hugged me. Over her shoulder I saw

Kyle. He looked pale and wrung out and kept his eyes steadfastly on

322 Michael Marshall

the fl oor, and he reminded me of the way Tyler had looked when I

fi rst saw him in my old house—as if he was keeping a low profi le to

avoid catching the attention of darkness.

Becki meanwhile had leaned back and was staring at me. I real-

ized I had a gun in my hand and my shirt off and was liberally blood-

spattered and bruised.

“I’m fi ne,” I said.

“The fuck. What the hell
happened
to you?”

“No big deal.”

Switch glanced at the wound with a professional eye. “Could have

gone bad, where that shit hit.”

“Yeah. But it didn’t. Let’s move on.”

He nodded, with something that looked like mild respect. “What

up?”

I took out my wallet and threw it to him. “Best I can do right

now.”

“Not what I’m asking.”

“People who did this to me have my ex-wife and kid. I don’t know

how many there are, or what they want.”

“You know where they
at,
at least?”

“Not for sure. But I have a good idea where to start looking.”

He threw my wallet back to me. “You serious, I can see that.”

Ignored by everyone, Kyle had wandered over to a chair at the

kitchen table and sat perched on the edge. His arms were wrapped

around his body, and he was moving gently back and forth.

“Are you hurting?” I asked. “If so, you’re out of luck, because I

don’t have your drugs anymore.”

“It’s this place,” he muttered. “It’s not right.”

“True that,” said Little D. “Town is like a morgue, yo. Like ev-

erybody go indoors and lock in. What’s with that shit?”

“Don’t know and I don’t care,” I said, grabbing my guns off the

table. “Let’s go.”

C H A P T E R 4 3

I’d been for leaving Becki and Kyle at Bill’s, obviously, but Kyle

wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t have cared less but Becki was scared, too,

and very freaked out. I took her to one side in the hallway. I knew

she’d had a rough day, rough week, but this was not shaping up as an

evening with room for passengers.

“Becki,” I started.

“Forget it, John. No
way
are you leaving me here,” she said.

“Kyle’s right. There’s something dead wrong about this place. Even

those scary-ass guys feel it.”

“They’re just not used to small mountain towns. Winter comes,

and it’s like humans were never here.”

“Bullshit. It’s more than that. You think these are the kind of

people who normally make deals? Those dudes
beat me up,
John.

They came in my apartment and hit me. A
lot
. A girl. And the small

one was digging it, believe me. But you know what? On the way

over here, the other one
actually says sorry
. And even before that,

when I’m on the street freaking at Kristina and they jump out of

the car, she takes one look at the small one and he just stops talking.

I mean, she’s got a real scary energy about her, no doubt, but with