Randy White - Deceived

I felt my ears warming. “You let a dog attack people, then bet on where they run? You’re the animals!” I yelled.

I was so mad, it must have startled the younger man because he stopped. He stood staring at me for a moment, but then proved it wasn’t my anger that had given him pause. “Hannah…?” he asked, his voice familiar. “God A’mighty, it is you-Hannah Smith! Harris, I know this girl!” The skinny man clapped his hands together, delighted, but then got serious and called to the pit bull, “Vixxy! Get your ass back in the kennel!”

The dog continued leaping at me but finally obeyed when graybeard, the ZZ Top giant, grabbed a chunk of pipe.

When it was safe, I climbed down and said to the skinny man, “Sorry to hear about your mother,” because, despite what had just happened, it was the right thing to say to Mica Helms.

MICA HAD BEENa tall boy in school but was now six-five, six-six-even he wasn’t sure-but looked taller because his body, instead of filling out, had only stretched longer as he grew, his skin tight on a boney frame that looked to be all elbows and ribs, but with a gaunt face and a set of shoulders that could have made him handsome were it not for the tattoos and the chemical sparking of his eyes.

Crack or meth? I wondered. Oxycodone, painkillers… or something new?

Mica’s nervous chattering, his barks of pointless laughter, made it evident that he was using again. The name of the chemical didn’t matter. His brain was starving. It made him a hunter, his glittering eyes always on the alert for a new source-or a new threat. Those eyes were studying me now as he said, “What if I told you donations to the museum were being kept right here? There’s a building out back-nothing fancy, but it’s safe. Would you keep your mouth shut? New donors might not like their family treasures bein’ stored in a junkyard-just temporary, of course.”

For ten minutes, we had been circling the subject of Fisherfolk Incorporated and I was getting impatient. “Would I tell the police, you mean?”

“The po-lice ?” Mica said, making it a two-syllable word. “Why the hell you do that? Honey, I’m on probation. Last thing I’m gonna do is break the law. I don’t remember seeing your old fishing reels, but if your mamma’s stuff is there, I’ll find it.” He paused, patted the shredding machine affectionately, then smiled down at me. “But Harris runs this place. He didn’t like it when those cops come around asking questions about me… when was that, Saturday? He’d like it even less if he knew you was the reason.”

I didn’t care for Mica’s threatening tone. “From the way that dog minded Harris but ignored you,” I said, “maybe they should come back and ask him some questions, too. Is that what you’re making me do? Call police?”

Mica straightened as if insulted, then lowered his voice to say, “Hannah, you always was the world’s most pigheaded girl. Watch what you say around Harris Spooner! My first six months at Raiford, that man showed me how to jail. Baby, you don’t wanna mess with-” He glanced at the trailer where graybeard, in his coveralls, stood watching from the doorway, then gave up, saying, “Hell, you wouldn’t understand. Better to show you.” Mica waved me closer to the shredding machine. “Watch this,” he said, then hit a switch.

I stepped back, not closer, and covered my ears because of the noise. The shredding machine was built on a trailer so it could be towed and had a conveyor belt that led to a rectangular hopper at the top, a yellow box the size of a bathtub. Nothing I could do but stand there while Mica rolled a tire onto the conveyor and then wince when the tire dropped down into the chute. An auger inside the chute rotated the tire like a corkscrew while gradually devouring the thing. The noise, already horrendous, became an ascending scream. Beneath the chute were steel teeth on spindles that rotated in a blur and never slowed while streamers of black rubber, suddenly as light as ribbons, were vented into a metal container. Soon the tire disappeared.

Mica watched me, not the shredder, and his glittering eyes warned It could happen to you.

“Shut it off!” I ordered.

Instead of hitting the switch, he peeked at the ZZ Top giant again, his manner suddenly secretive, then signaled for me to follow as if he didn’t want Spooner to know. So I followed.

Anything was better than standing near that awful machine-or so I believed until I was told how the man with the gray beard, Harris Spooner, had disposed of his late wife.

Mica led me behind tires and through more wreckage that screened us from graybeard’s view. In the far corner of the property was a metal building where weeds sprouted along the fencing. The building was to our right, but we turned left and didn’t stop until we were among a row of vehicles that had crashed so violently, they resembled bread loaves all blackened by rust and fire. In red paint on a windshield, someone had scrawled Death Cars , as if designating the area a theme park.

“How’d you like to have been in that van?” Mica asked me, taking out his lighter and cigarettes. “Cops had that towed in last week. Still some flies around it-see ’em?” He leaned his head, exhaled smoke, then offered the pack to me. “Menthol? I got used to ’em in the joint.”

Out here, the noise of the shredder wasn’t so bad and there was more sunlight. I could see that Mica’s skin was pale and that his teeth were blackening at the roots. I had read somewhere that decay was common in meth addicts because their mouths stopped producing saliva. I wouldn’t have made the connection if Mica hadn’t grinned at me, but he did.

“I didn’t come here to provide entertainment,” I said. I had retrieved my organizer and was taking out my cell phone.

“Just explaining why you shouldn’t piss off my Uncle Harris.”

“Your uncle ?”

“Grandma’s little brother,” he said, and pointed toward the van wreckage. “I’d rather been riding shotgun in that mess than have ol’ Harris stuff me in a shredder. Hell, he’d do it, too! That boy’d still be in Raiford if they could’a found more than a piece or two of his wife. Harris, he might look messy, but when it comes to his work, that boy’s goddamn tidy!” Mica took a long drag of his cigarette, his message sent, then asked, “How many years it been since we seen each other, Hannah-han?”

Hannah-han. As a toddler, Mica had been unable to pronounce my name, and the nickname had stuck with the Helms children. Which might have been endearing, but Mica was still grinning while his eyes ogled the contours of my blouse.

“I was hoping we could talk like adults,” I replied, concentrating on my phone. The mention of Harris Spooner’s wife being found in pieces had made my stomach roll, and I didn’t want to show he’d upset me.

“Go right ahead, I’m enjoying the scenery. By god, you’ve filled out, girl!” Apparently, Mica expected me to smile at the compliment. I didn’t, which offended him enough to trigger his temper. I was scrolling through recent calls when he added, “A body like a Q-tip, that’s the way I remember you looking. No… what was it kids called you? Oh! Pizza on a stick ’cause of them pimples! One thing that hasn’t changed is your shitty sense of humor. Honey… you need to loosen up.”

Even as a boy, Mica had had a viper’s tongue and the brains to hit his target where it hurt most. His words stung, but the girl he was taunting was long, long gone. I remained calm. “There’s nothing funny about stealing from old folks, people you’ve known all your life,” I said. “But I’ll admit that someone played a pretty good joke when they listed you on the board of directors.”