Badlands (19 page)

“Fish-belly white,” Dietrich said. “You ought to get some sun, Winkie.”

Winkie smiled uncomfortably while he buttoned back up and tucked his shirt in his jeans.

Dietrich sprawled on an overstuffed chair, one leg cocked up over an arm of it. The pistol was in his lap.

Winkie took a step toward an old couch strewn with clothes and Dietrich said, “I didn't say you could sit down. Did I tell you you could sit down? Did you hear me say that?”

“No.” Winkie stood there, his coat pooled in a clump near his boots.

“You told one of my friends you might have a lead on some missing black and blue, is that right?”

Blink
.

“The county has dried up, as you know. I've got good customers who are getting pissed off. Some of 'em are driving as far as Rapid City to score. My guys are getting antsy because their customers are leaning on 'em. So if you know where I can get my hands on real product, you better speak up.”

Winkie tried to remember everything T-Lock had told him to say. It sounded so smooth and good when T-Lock said it.

“I don't know the guy personally, but I heard through a buddy of mine that this,” Winkie hesitated, “this
guy
might have found a whole shitload of blue. He's sitting on it right now because he doesn't know what to do and he doesn't know who he can trust.”

“
This guy,
” Dietrich repeated. “This guy who your buddy knows. So who is your buddy?”

“I don't want to say. He doesn't have anything to do with this.”

“Who is this guy?”

“I don't even know his name. All I know is he's local. I mean, he ain't one of the newbies.”

“So why hasn't this guy taken the shit to the sheriff's department? Turned it in for a reward and a write-up in the paper or something?”

“Man, I don't know.”

“The fuck you don't,” Dietrich said, his neck tensing. Winkie was impressed. He could actually see Dietrich's muscles and tendons dance beneath his taut skin. “
This guy
wants me to pay him big bucks for the shit sight unseen.
This guy
thinks he's smart enough and I'm stupid enough and desperate enough to set up a meeting and show up with what, a few million in cash?”

“I don't know nothing about prices,” Winkie said.

Blink
.

“Give me a name,” Dietrich said. “Your buddy's name or
this guy's
name.”

“I told you I don't know.”

“Then get the fuck out of my house before I shoot a bullet into each one of your stupid blinking eyes,” Dietrich said, sitting up straight, getting ready to spring like some kind of lion, Winkie thought.

Winkie realized he was sweating. He could smell himself sweat. Then he remembered and said, “I brought you a sample.”

Dietrich's eyes narrowed. He didn't spring.

Finally, he said, “Hand it over.”

Winkie reached very slowly into the front pocket of his jeans. He knew better than to try a sudden movement. Dietrich's eyes locked on Winkie's hand as he moved. The gun was back in his hand.

Winkie eased the clear plastic baggie out and held it up by his fingertips.

“Give,” Dietrich said, holding out his hand palm up.

Winkie placed the packet into Dietrich's hand.

“Blue,” Dietrich said, sitting back and studying it. “I know this stuff.”

Dietrich pulled apart the Ziploc top and licked his little finger. Almost daintily, he probed into the bag with his finger until it was covered with tiny crystals. Then he stuck the finger up his nostril and inhaled.

He sat and waited. The look on his face was vacant but expectant. Winkie knew it was the real stuff but he was scared anyway and he felt like his legs might collapse on him.

Dietrich briefly closed his eyes as if in awe, then opened them and smiled.

“This is good shit,” he said. “I know where it came from.”

Winkie shrugged as if he had no idea.

“I know who really, really,
really
fucking wants it back. Was there a lot of cash in the bag as well?”

“I don't know.” It sounded hollow, even to him.

“Sure you do, Winkie.” Dietrich said with confidence. He seemed to be studying Winkie's face for cracks.

Then Dietrich slapped the tops of his thighs and stood up. “I want to show you something, Winkster.”

Winkie blinked.

Dietrich reached into his front pocket and withdrew a wad of cash that was folded in two. He smoothed the bills on the table in front of him and then fanned them out as if they were a hand of cards.

“Watch this,” Dietrich said, holding an odd-looking penlight over the bills. He thumbed a switch and suddenly the faces of the bills revealed glowing swoops and curlicues marked on them.

“This is what they do to prevent skimming from their dealers,” Dietrich said. “A dude's less likely to peel off a few bills if he thinks somebody might go through his wallet and flash an ultraviolet light on his stash. And guess where these marked bills came from?”

Winkie shook his head.

Dietrich sang, “‘Ba-da-ba-ba-bah, I'm lovin' it.' That's right, our very own Mickey D's. Two of my guys went there today and they both wound up with some of these bills in change. We've been checking all the cash that comes through here and we got two hits from the same place. Crazy, huh?”

“I have no idea what that means,” Winkie said. But he was thinking T-Lock might have put Rachel up to it. He didn't know why. But Rachel worked there.

“See,” Dietrich said, “here's what I was thinking before you showed up. I was thinking we could make a deal where everybody wins. You—or your mystery guy—could keep the cash. Just keep it. Consider it payment for the product and everybody's happy. Well, maybe your guy isn't completely happy, but at least he's not cut into a million tiny pieces along with every member of his family. But if
this guy
is already circulating the cash through town like this, it's a matter of time before the cops figure it out and shut him down. Which means he don't get anything, and I don't get any product. And the people who the product belongs to, believe me, they don't fuck around with losers like you and
this guy
.”

“Look,” Winkie said, “I'm just the messenger, you know? I don't have the stuff and I don't know where it is. I really don't want to be in the middle of this.”

Blink
.

“But you are in the middle of it,” Dietrich said with a laugh. “You came to me, remember? Now what we've got to do is figure out what comes next.”

Winkie didn't know what to suggest, other than he just wanted the last hour of his life back so he could do something else with it.

Dietrich leaned back in his chair and angled his head toward a closed door over his shoulder. His eyes never left Winkie.

“Did you get all that?” he asked, raising his voice.

The door opened.

“I heard it,” said a dark, short Hispanic man with big ears. He came into the front room and stepped to the side so a birdlike man could exit.

The second man moved swiftly and positioned himself a few feet behind Winkie.

“Meet my friends La Matanza and Silencio,” Dietrich said. “Silencio is the one behind you, but La Matanza may have a few questions. They came all the way from California. Push one for English and two for Spanish.”

“I don't speak no Spanish,” Winkie said.

Dietrich laughed, and said, “Don't worry.”

Dietrich then said to La Matanza, “So it wasn't the bikers after all. They might have run your guy off the road, but they didn't get his product. But my friend the Winkster seems to know who did.”

La Matanza looked dangerous to Winkie just standing there. Part of it was his stillness. Unlike Dietrich, there was nothing manic about him. He looked at Winkie with what almost looked like sympathy or understanding.

“I don't want no trouble,” Winkie said.

“There doesn't have to be any trouble.”

He spoke clear English with just a hint of an accent.

“I can go talk to him,” Winkie said. “I'll explain the situation to him. I'll ask him to drive out here and work out the details with you guys. I don't want no part of this anymore.”

La Matanza nodded thoughtfully. He said to Dietrich, “We thought that guy last night was one tough hombre. It turns out he really didn't know anything. But I think we can see here our message got through.”

“Loud and fucking clear.” Dietrich laughed. It was a forced laugh, Winkie thought. Then he realized even Dietrich was a little scared himself of the two men in his house. Dietrich wasn't in charge. They were.

The only topic of conversation all day on the job were the body parts being found all over town. Winkie was pretty sure he was staring into the eyes of the man who'd been responsible.

Maybe T-Lock deserved it, Winkie thought. T-Lock had put him in this position. But Rachel didn't, and Kyle didn't.

And
he
didn't.

Winkie said, “I'll go right now and bring him here. I'll tell him to bring the duffel bag. Then I'm out of it, okay?”

“Who is this man?” La Matanza asked.

Winkie hesitated. If he gave up the only thing he had to bargain with so quickly …

La Matanza turned and shut the door that led to the kitchen. Winkie could no longer see the two women.

Then he felt two hands on his head from behind, one on top and the other in back, gripping his hair. Silencio.

Winkie was wrenched back and to the side and even as quickly as it happened he knew better than to reach out to try and shield his fall with his bare hands.

But he wished he would have when his face was pressed hard into the top of the glowing woodstove.

The pain was incredible but short-lived because it just reached a crescendo and blinked out after a second or two. What frightened him even more was the sizzling sound it made, like a raw steak dropped in a hot frying pan. And the horrible acrid smell.

“Don't burn his mouth,” La Matanza said calmly to Silencio. “We need him to be able to talk.”

“Holy
shit
, man,” Dietrich whispered.

 

PART THREE

DAY SIX

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

AS HE
rode home from his paper route, Kyle was thinking he'd never been out in such cold in his life. The vinyl covering of his bicycle seat had actually shattered into shards that morning when he sat on it. He knew it was more than twenty degrees below zero because Alf Pedersen had been complaining about it when he picked up his newspapers two hours before.

Kyle had covered his entire face except for his eyes with a scarf Alf lent him that smelled of Alf's cigarettes, but even his eyeballs were cold. He could barely feel his feet and hands. His tires made a high-pitched squeaking sound in the fresh snow that was irritating, and the chain to his rear wheels was stiff. It had been an awesome sight, though, to look out over the prairie from the bluff that morning: steam rose from the frozen river and made the flares in the distance glow and pulsate. The sight made Kyle imagine the aftermath of a great battle.

It had been the first time since he'd started his route that people were waiting for him when he delivered their newspaper. The headline on the front of the paper that morning was:
SAVAGE: BODY PARTS DISCOVERED THROUGHOUT TOWN
. One lady offered to let him come inside to warm up, but he said he'd be late if he did that.

If there had ever been a morning he could have used some help with his route—like driving him from house to house—this had been it. But he hadn't even asked his mom because he'd overheard her and T-Lock fighting most of the night. He knew she needed some sleep before she went to work.

He didn't know what the argument was about. Something about T-Lock's friend Winkie not showing up. T-Lock cursed his friend and his mom said he'd never been any good anyway, and T-Lock got mad at her for saying that. Kyle had buried his head in his pillows to drown out the argument but not before doing a couple of practice grabs for the arrow under his bed in case he needed to act. Eventually, the house got quiet.

In his dream, Raheem caught a fish in the river and reeled it up to the boat. It was huge and so heavy Raheem couldn't pull it in. It took the two of them to wrestle it over the gunwales where it flopped around. Kyle didn't know what kind of fish it was but it was impressive. Some people having a picnic on the bank saw the size of the fish as they hauled it in and they started cheering. Kyle tipped his hat to them as they floated by.

When Kyle had gotten up that morning he found out why the house was still. T-Lock had taken the new van he'd traded for and left. Kyle hoped he never came back, although he'd sure like his money back so he could take care of his mom.

*   *   *

HE BUCKED
a frozen berm of ice that had been pushed to the side of the street by a snowplow and took the sidewalk the last block and a half toward his house. As he turned the corner on his street he saw a vehicle idling in the road directly across from his house. It was so cold that the exhaust from the big SUV ballooned out the back and was tinted cotton-candy pink from the brake lights.

Then he saw the light bar on top of the car in the glow from a streetlight and recognized it as one of the sheriff's department SUVs like he'd seen three days before at the site of the car crash.

It was just sitting there, idling. Like the driver inside was looking at Kyle's house.

Kyle slowed to a stop, hidden from the SUV by a camper trailer parked on the street. He wasn't sure what to do. Probably, he thought, T-Lock had gotten himself into some kind of trouble. The cop was there to tell Kyle's mom about it.

But no one got out of the vehicle.