Stuart Kaminsky - Vengeance

“What are we drinking?” asked Flo. “I know Lew is beer, which I don’t consider drinking, and McKinney here is straight whiskey, which he doesn’t drink till the sun goes down, so he’s having…?”

“You have Dr Pepper?” asked Ames.

“I have every drink known to man or beast,” said Flo, holding up her glass to take a drink and purse her heavily painted lips. “Dr Pepper is coming up. And you, Ms. Tree?”

“Beryl,” she said. “Just water.”

“Suit yourself, my dear,” said Flo. “And have a seat. I’ll put your bag in your room.”

Flo pointed to a leather chair with arms made from the antlers of something from the far north. Beryl sat.

“Something to eat?”

“We ate at the Texas,” I said.

“That phony cowboy, Fairing, makes a decent bowl of chili. I’ll give the son of a bitch that.”

Flo picked up the small suitcase and left us in the living room listening to Patsy Cline sing about how much her lover was hurting her.

Flo wasn’t gone long. When she returned, she was carrying a tray with four drinks in tall glasses. The ice in the glasses clinked as she put the tray on the low redwood table.

“This is my special,” Flo said. “You can drink Dr Pepper, beer and water and any other piss you want at the Texas. At Flo Zink’s you go with the special when the sun sinks its ass into the water, which is what it will be doing in about ten minutes. Now, if you want to sit and hold it while the ice melts and the sun disappears, you go right ahead, McKinney.”

We all took a glass.

“Here’s to getting through the shit,” said Flo, holding out her glass in a toast.

I knew Flo’s special. We drank. Ames didn’t make a sound and his weathered face didn’t change. Beryl Tree choked and caught her breath.

“You get used to it,” said Flo.

“I like it,” said Beryl, taking another sip.

“I’m gonna love this woman,” Flo said to me and Ames.

I took a drink, steeling myself from the memory of the last time I had a special. It burned and tasted like sweet molten plastic. Flo was almost finished with her drink.

“I’ve got to go,” I said after forcing down another small sip.

Beryl continued to drink. Maybe she needed it.

“She’ll be safe here,” said Flo. “At least from everybody but me.”

I was familiar with Flo’s arsenal of weapons. They hung on wall racks or were displayed in cabinets in her gun room. I knew some of the guns were loaded. I didn’t know which ones.

I turned to go.

“You’ll find Adele,” said Beryl, fortified with Flo’s special, which seethed its way quickly into the nervous system.

“I’ll find her,” I said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Not too early,” said Flo. “We’re going to be talking most of the fuckin’ night. Sorry about my language, Beryl.”

“I’m a waitress in a truck stop,” Beryl said. “I don’t think you could come up with anything I haven’t heard every day for the last twenty years.”

“I can try,” said Flo, smiling sweetly.

I dropped Ames back at the Texas and asked him to see if he could get any leads on Adele or Dwight. He nodded, got out and went inside. I headed back to that which passed as home.

It wasn’t too late. The DQ parking lot was busy but not full. I parked toward the back of the lot, locked the Metro and headed toward the concrete stairs.

I didn’t see him standing back in the shadows of the building and bushes near the stairway. But I did hear him when my hand touched the railing.

“Where is she?” came the voice from the dark. It was a raspy voice, the voice of a man who might have played an outlaw or a tough sheriff on an old radio show. Or maybe Flo and Ed Fairing had just put me in a western mood.

I stopped and looked toward the voice.

He came out of the shadows. He was big. Boots, badly faded jeans, a short-sleeved button-down white shirt with green stripes. His hair was dark, long, tied back in a small ponytail. My first impression was that he was good-looking and dangerous. Some women, maybe a lot of women, liked that. Most men didn’t.

There was nothing in his hands but his fists were clenched tight.

I didn’t have to guess who he was.

“Where’s Adele?” I asked.

Dwight Handford was no more than three yards away and closing in slowly. I was on the second step. I turned to face him. With me standing on the second step our eyes were almost dead even. Even in the dim light I could see that his eyes were blue-gray and dancing.

“You’re a dago, right?” he said.

“And you’re a redneck,” I answered.

“That sort of sets up how we’re gonna have this conversation,” he said. He had closed the distance between us to less than a yard. “Dagos understand violence.”

“And rednecks know how to come up with it,” I said.

“I’m not stupid, dago,” he said.

“Can we switch to wop?” I asked.

“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile. “I’m planning to hurt you just enough to let you know I’m serious.

Then you’re gonna tell me where Beryl is. I’m gonna go see her and be sure she leaves town. You’re gonna stop looking for Adele and asking questions.”

“How did you find out I was looking for you?” I asked.

“You asked a lot of people,” he said, inches from my face now. “Where is she?”

“Are you willing to kill me over this?” I asked.

“Maybe, I’ve… maybe.”

“I’m not telling you,” I said.

He searched my eyes.

“You’re not scared,” he said.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “I’m not sure myself. Sometimes I think I came here to sit down in a chair, watch old videos, eat at the DQ and die.”

“You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” said Handford.

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I don’t think so. But you may be right. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“We’ll see,” he said, slamming his right fist into my stomach. I started to sink, grabbed the railing. Whatever was in my stomach wanted out. He’d missed the rib cage.

“Where is Beryl?” he asked. “I’m not an unreasonable man. I just want to be left alone. I want Adele to be left alone. She’s mine and I fully intend to keep her and take care of her.”

“You’ve done a great job so far,” I said, sinking back on the steps and letting go of the rail so I could clutch my stomach. “You’ve got her out selling herself on the Trail.”

He stood over me, hands on his hips, and shook his head.

“It’s all fuckin’ simple for you,” he said. “You don’t know shit, do you?”

I nodded. I really didn’t feel much like talking.

“Then I’ll tell,” he went on. “It’s all about stayin’ alive and doing what you feel like doin’ without getting caught. You live. You die and there ain’t no God watchin’. You understand?”

I nodded again.

“Just because cowards like you say there’s somethin’ wrong with what I do, don’t make it wrong. It’s horse shit. If God didn’t want me doing what I do, he’d have nailed my ass to the shit house wall long time ago.”

“I’m glad I’m being beaten by a brillant, if maniac philosopher,” I said, gasping at the end.

“Wop,” he said, “for the last time, where is Beryl? Answer me fast. Answer me true or you’re goin’ to the hospital or worse. You read Studs Lonigan?”

“No,” I gasped.

“What I’m gonna do to you is in that book. Look for it if you live out the night.”

I came up as quickly as I could and rammed my head into his face. He staggered back with a groan and I sank back down on the steps. I had intended to run for the DQ, but my legs weren’t on my side. Handford moved back toward me. It didn’t take much imagination to know what was about to happen.